
Class 



Book -^c S 



Copyright }J^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



i 



RECLAIimG A COMMONWEALTH 



AND 



OTHER ESSAYS 



BY 



CHEESMAN A/HERRICK 



JOHN JOSEPH McVEY 
PHILADELPHIA 



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V"\X^ 



Copyright, 191 i 
CHEESMAN A. HERRICK 



©CI.A300833 
lid 



TEACHER COUNSELOR FRIEND 

CHARLES DeOARlVlO 

Strong of Mind Generous of Heart Noble of Purpose 



PREFACE. 

The following essays are the outgrowth of occa- 
sional addresses and three magazine articles. All 
are educational in character. '' Reclaiming a Com- 
monwealth " appeared first in The Outlook, and '' The 
Keystone of Power '' in The Metropolitan Magazine. 
Both, however, have been rewritten and considerably 
enlarged. Certain observations based on a visit to 
European schools have been incorporated in the essay 
last named. Taken together they constitute a discus- 
sion of some important phases of educational ten- 
dencies and of present-day interests. 

No attempt has been made to prepare a treatise. 
Though considerable investigation has been neces- 
sary for some of these studies, the effort has been to 
avoid the effect of a " contribution." If the mode of 
treatment has made the essays less scientific it has pos- 
sibly made them more readable. Should the book 
bring to those into whose hands it falls pleasure at all 
comparable to the pleasure that has come from its 
preparation the author will be highly gratified. 

The writer is pleased to acknowledge his indebted- 
ness to Professor William H. Mearns for his sugges- 
tions on several of the essays in manuscript, to Mr. 
Patterson Du Bois for a careful reading of all the 
manuscript and the proof, and to Principal W. D. 



vi PREFACE. 

Lewis for his reading of the proof. Lucien Hugh 
Alexander, Esq., was good enough to supply much of 
the material for the essay on '' Professional Ethics " 
and to read in manuscript this essay and the related 
one on "A New Commercialism." If the book has 
escaped errors and is free from faulty presentation it 
is due to the many helpful suggestions of these friends. 

C. A. H. 

Girard College. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Reclaiming a Commonwealth . i 

Education the Keystone of Power 17 

Old and New Education 47 

Samuel Miller's Retrospect 57 

Unconscious Education 79 

The Nestor of American Schoolmasters 96 

Professional Ethics 106 

A New Commercialism 123 

Supervision of High Schools 140 

Old Age Pensions 164 

Retirement Funds for Teachers 185 

vii 



I. 

Reclaiming a Commonwealth. 

North Carolina was long considered the standing 
example of illiteracy and educational inefficiency. In a 
scientific study of education as late as 1900 she was 
placed with the lowest expenditure per capita for 
schools, and the lowest productive power per capita. 
A recent Governor of the State, and a group of men 
with whom he labored, proclaimed to the people of 
North Carolina from the tide-water regions to the 
mountain fastnesses, that theirs was the poorest State 
in the Union in dollars and cents, and the most illit- 
erate save one. 

Knowledge of the North State's part in the Civil 
War is necessary to understand her subsequent educa- 
tional history. Attendance upon a State reunion of 
Confederate veterans at Greensboro taught a little 
of how great had been her sacrifice, how complete 
her subjugation. Broken and aged men, the shadow 
of their former selves, and of the armies in which they 
served, wore in their hats what they called a brag 
feather of the Tar Heels Brigade which recited their 
record, " First at Bethel, Foremost at Gettysburg, 
Furthest at Chickamauga, and Last at Appomat- 
tox." North Carolina, it should be further said, fur- 
nished largely in excess of her proportion of the Con- 



2 RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 

federate army; from a war population of 141,000 she 
sent to the field 127,000, and of these 40,000 were lost. 

But the loss of men was not all; infinitely greater 
were the wasted wealth and the crushed spirits of a 
people proud and brave. When the war was over, the 
special fund for the support of schools was gone, and 
the school-houses were deserted. The work of Calvin 
Wiley, former State Superintendent of Schools, closed 
with Sherman's occupation of Raleigh. To Sherman 
war meant hell ; to North Carolina it meant illiteracy. 

When the war closed the University of North Caro- 
lina was without occupation. School organization and 
school support had disappeared. Hopeless indeed was 
the outlook; material needs were considered first. It 
was ten years before the State University reopened her 
doors ; but at once she began to work mightily for the 
educational renaissance of the State. In the first three 
classes were the recent Governor, Charles B. Aycock, 
on fire with educational enthusiasm ; the present pro- 
gressive State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 
James Y. Joyner, and Edwin A. Alderman, President 
successively of the University of North Carolina, Tu- 
lane University, and the University of Virginia, bril- 
liant as an orator, and whose addresses present with 
convincing force that education of the whole people is 
the supreme need of a democracy. To these should 
be added the not less important work of another alum- 
nus, the late Charles D. Mclver, in the establishment 
of industrial training and the training of teachers, 
and as Secretary of the Southern Educational Board. 



RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 3 

University of North Carolina men, headed by Alder- 
man and Mclver, were leaders in the summer institute 
movement, and graduates of this institution have as- 
sumed the superintendencies in more than one-half of 
the graded schools of the State. A considerable pro- 
portion of the county superintendents of schools are 
also from the State University. Any institution of the 
world might well be proud of the work of the younger 
as well as the older alumni of the University of North 
Carolina. Let it be said to her credit that with her 
University, North Carolina has been working out her 
own educational salvation ; and already her influence 
has extended throughout the South and to the nation 
at large. One, writing from Boston in the Educa- 
tional Review for December, 1907, tells that it is to 
the " illiterate " Southern state of North Carolina that 
we must go to find educational methods in practice 
which are superior to those being practiced in the 
North. North Carolina is believed by this writer to 
have reached high ideals in several directions : she has 
never permitted sectarianism to become an issue in the 
control of her schools; North Carolina has centralized 
her education, giving economy and efficiency of ad- 
ministration; this State is leading in improved archi- 
tecture for rural schools; and, finally. North Carolina 
is believed to point useful lessons in wise and safe 
educational experimentation. 

The educational abyss from which the State has 
arisen is shown by the testimony of the Hon. John C. 
Scarborough, who became State Superintendent of 



4 RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 

Schools in 1877. There were then no institutions for 
the training of teachers, no provisions for teachers' 
institutes, and the Legislature, lest the Board of Edu- 
cation should exercise its general powers, had by law 
prohibited it from securing a clerk for the State Super- 
intendent, or allowing him any money for traveling 
expenses. 

Much preliminary work had been done, but down 
to 1900 progress was slight. A new qualification for 
electors was to be fixed in that year, and the man for 
the occasion was the standard-bearer of the majority 
party, Charles B. Aycock. Intelligence was the watch- 
word of the campaign; a provision before the people 
was that no one, white or black, coming of age after 
1908 should be allowed to vote unless he could read 
and write. 

"Adopt this provision," said Aycock, " and if I am 
elected Governor it will be my chief aim to give every 
child in North Carolina the opportunities for an edu- 
cation." The wisdom of universal education was most 
convincingly presented, and partisan issues were 
largely ignored. " If you do not want more atten- 
tion to education," said the frank and fearless candi- 
date, ''don't vote for me." Aycock himself made one 
hundred and eight speeches in that campaign, and his 
work was supplemented by others who took the key- 
note from their leader. The pledges of the candidate 
were widely printed in the press, but he was not con- 
tent with this, and had his platform struck oflf in 
circulars and these distributed. As might have been 



RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 5 

expected, Ay cock was chosen by a handsome majority, 
and, best of all, he was as good as his word. '' Re- 
deeming the pledges " he termed his action. In season 
and out he preached the gospel of a new educational 
dispensation. The State levy for educational purposes 
was largely increased and the Governor worked di- 
rectly and indirectly for additional local taxation. 
Marked progress was made in the following direc- 
tions : improvement in the character of the schools, the 
introduction of the graded-school system into the 
smaller cities and villages, and the subdivision of 
larger districts so that schools are within reach of all. 
Governor Aycock lost no opportunity to speak to 
his people on his chosen theme, and he was most skill- 
ful in suiting his messages to special occasions. One 
of his speeches at the county-seat of a remote moun- 
tain county was said 'to be typical. Waynesville, in 
the Blue Ridge valley, was to unveil a memorial tablet 
to the founder of the town. Announcements of this 
event stated that the Governor would be present and 
deliver an address. It was to the whole region a day 
of unusual interest, and the inhabitants for miles around 
thronged the streets. As the gathering was a repre- 
sentative one of the '' mountain whites," one might 
well be curious to see how the educational Governor 
would be received. The exercises were held in the 
court-house, where all the available space was early 
occupied. One anxious visitor who happened to be a 
little late spent fifteen minutes in trying to get within 
hearing distance, and failed. The address and its 



6 RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 

effect were little short of wonderful. From first to 
last, the words were of a man who knew his subject, 
and believed in it; who knew his auditors, and be- 
lieved in them. The response showed that the hearers 
respected the speaker and that they respected his mes- 
sage. 

The speaker began by reference to his former ap- 
pearance on that platform, and to the promise then 
made, that if he were elected there would be furnished 
the best possible education for every boy and girl in 
North Carolina. '' My election," he continued, " made 
my pledge that of the people of the State, and we be- 
came co-laborers in a great work." With true art, 
the belief was expressed that every man, in the assem- 
blage had voted for him, or if there was one who did 
not, he already was sorry for it. " I come to you, 
then," he said, '' to give an account of my steward- 
ship, and to ask that you keep faith with me by doing 
your part in the stupendous work of furnishing edu- 
cational opportunity to all." 

The occasion was made to teach its lesson; the 
founder of Waynesville had been a Revolutionary sol- 
dier, and the part of North Carolina in the Revolu- 
tion, from the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independ- 
ence to the campaigns of Green, had a brilliant setting. 
Local pride was appealed to ; it was west North Caro- 
lina that saved the " State of Franklin " to the Union, 
and Waynesville played an important part in that 
work. The marksmanship of Carolina riflemen re- 
ceived its meed of praise for service in the Second. 



RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH, 7 

War with Great Britain, the Mexican War, and the 
Civil War. In courage and heroic endeavor, the Gov- 
ernor declared his people to be second to none. " In- 
deed," he asserted, " North Carolinians are the best 
people in the world when they are doing the things 
they have been trained to do." The greatest shame to 
a North Carolinian, it was affirmed, was to be a cow- 
ard, and the greatest disgrace to turn his back. 

North Carolina was then boldly declared to be the 
poorest State in the Union, and the most illiterate save 
one. '' God bless South Carolina!" said the speaker; 
" she has got us into a good deal of trouble, but she 
saves us the ignominy of being the most illiterate of 
States." Next the question was asked, '' Why are 
you so poor? Is it because you are lazy? Yes, you 
are lazy. Is it because you are thriftless? Yes, you 
are thriftless. Is it because you are lawless? Yes, 
you are lawless; but you are neither more lazy, nor 
more lawless, than your neighbors. North Carolina 
is poor because she is illiterate. Massachusetts is i;ich, 
so rich that it sounds like a dream ; but Massachusetts 
has furnished splendid educational opportunities. The 
trouble with North Carolina has been that we have too 
long depended on the education of the few. In our 
widely separated communities it has been, and is, diffi- 
cult to bring education within reach of all; but the 
future welfare of the State depends upon this being 
done." 

The speaker devoted himself to the proposition that 
the strength of a state can be adequately measured 



8 RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 

by the average intelligence of its people, dwelling on 
this as it affects both political and industrial life. 
His illustrations were most pointed and convincing. 
" When you buy manufactured articles/' said he, '' you 
buy them from Massachusetts, and you pay for labor 
worth four dollars a day; but you pay in the products 
of your own labor, which is worth fifty cents a day. 
Now, what does this mean ? Why, that you must give 
eight days of your labor for one day of that of the 
man in Massachusetts. This is because Massachusetts 
has taught her people to work, and North Carolina 
has not. Not that I urge a mere increase in wages," 
he continued; ''doubling the wages of the people of 
North Carolina would not double our wealth ; what we 
need is an increase in the efficiency of our workers. 
We need the application of intelligence to our work. 
In the Patent Office at Washington there is one patent 
for every 900 citizens in the United States at large, 
but there is but one for every 24,000 in North Caro- 
lina." Education was found to be knowing and doing 
something, and the man who knows and does the 
things that the times demand was declared to be some- 
thing. 

After disposing of universal education as a general 
proposition and showing the folly and shortsightedness 
of educating the few, the Governor spoke of the edu- 
cation of negroes. The one criticism urged against 
Charles B. Aycock was that he favored taxing white 
people to educate the blacks; but he declared that his 
plea for universal education in 1900 meant the edu- 



RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 9 

cation of the blacks, and further, that when he said 
intelligence should rule, he did not mean to exclude 
the intelligent black man. Haywood County, in which 
the Governor was speaking, had about six hundred 
negroes in a total population of over sixteen thousand, 
and the sentiment was strong against the white sup- 
port of schools for blacks. The discussion of negro 
education before that audience was like handling fire 
over a powder magazine. 

After the orator was thoroughly^^/^ rapport with his 
audience, and his sentiments had been again and again 
applauded, he concluded a brilliant period with the 
statement, '' Yes, and . I believe in the education of 
niggers!" This was uttered with measured delibera- 
tion and intense feeling. The audience was awed. 
The speaker paused for the effect of what he had said, 
and noting disapproval, he added : '' I perceive that I 
have created a gulf between myself and my audience; 
but," with deep intensity, *' my — fellow-citizens, — you 
— ^believe — in — the — education — of — niggers !" The 
mountaineer admires courage, and probably nothing 
but the Governor's fearlessness saved him from being 
hissed. 

One could but admire the skill with which Governor 
Aycock had captured the strongholds of ignorance and 
illiteracy; but when he rode full tilt at the fortifica- 
tions of race prejudice, the seeming self-interest of 
his audience, and the traditions of over two hundred 
years, it seemed too much ; one feared for the outcome. 
But the speaker was equal to the task. He began : 



10 RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH, 

''You believe in the education of a mule; he isn't 
worth much until you break him ; he must be educated 
to work; he will bring no return and be a source of 
expense until he is trained. You take your setter-pup 
or your fox-hound and school him; he would do more 
harm than good until he is educated. Now," added 
the Governor, '' I think more of a nigger than I do 
of a mule or dog, and the reasons for educating a mule 
or a dog hold to a greater degree for educating a 
nigger. Intelligence and trained skill of our black 
men are necessary," he continued, '' for the material 
welfare and political security of our State." This was 
supplemented by a discussion of true and false educa- 
tion, illumining and convincing. A powerful plea was 
entered for the education of hand and mind, of white 
and black. The education that North Carolina needs, 
it was said, is that which shall train men to keep con- 
tracts inviolate, and which shall lead them into, not 
away from work. 

The rest of the speech was directed toward removing 
the prejudice against local taxation for schools, and to 
inducing the people to make use of the educational 
facilities offered. The conclusion was reached, and 
presented with power that '' the best money spent by 
any community is that spent for schools," and those 
from the local communities were urged to go home, 
call a meeting, and petition the proper officials for 
authority to place an extra levy for school purposes. 
The Governor said that the compelling power of public 
opinion must get and keep the children in school, that 



RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. \\ 

the State had no compulsory educational law, and 
could not enforce one if it did have it. A burden of 
responsibility was laid ujDon the teachers to get chil- 
dren to school ; the whole community was commis- 
sioned a vigilance committee to see that the youth did 
not grow up in ignorance. Withering was the arraign- 
ment of the man who whittles a white-pine stick at 
the cross-roads while his wife and children are making 
a living for themselves and him. '' No man who re- 
spects himself/' it was said, '' ought to speak with such 
a one; tell him to go to work; to get his wife into the 
home and his children into the school, and then to 
come back and you will talk with him." The speaker 
hoped that he would yet see the men of North Caro- 
lina at work, the women in the homes, and the children 
in the schools. The ending of this appeal was : 
'' Oh, I wish there wasn't a white-pine stick in the 
universe ; we have spent fifty thousand years in North 
Carolina whittling white-pine sticks !" The speaker 
also expressed himself on the man who keeps his chil- 
dren from school because he says it will injure them 
to walk a mile or two to attend, but who at the same 
time compels them to carry corn three miles to a mill. 
The conclusion was a call for self-sacrifice and labor. 
"This is our business," said the Governor; ''educa- 
tion that we do not work for will do us little good. I 
would not accept schools as a free gift from a million- 
aire. I want the people of North Carolina to pay the 
price of education and then they" will appreciate what 
it means." While the call was to a difficult task, the 



12 RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 

Speaker said he knew his people, and felt sure that 
they would not be found wanting. He had confidence 
in the unmixed and uncontaminated white race of 
North Carolina. As Governor, he bade his hearers 
join him in placing a school within the reach of every 
child of the State. 

The logic of the speech was convincing, the earnest- 
ness of the speaker was irresistible, the response of the 
audience was spontaneous. Charles B. Aycock and 
those he modestly represented have been rehabilitating 
a State; they are building the broad foundations of 
universal education for the superstructure of North 
Carolina's political and economic future. Progress in 
recent years has been marked; already North Caro- 
lina can give a new account of herself. The per capita 
expenditure for education increased from sixteen cents 
in 1870 to fifty-one cents in 1 900, while the average 
earning power of the people more than doubled in the 
decade ending 1900; but this was only the beginning. 
North Carolina's expenditures for public education 
more than doubled in the six years following 1900, 
Mclver's ringing message for the support of schools 
deserves the widest currency : 

Let us teach honestly and boldly that education 
is not only the best thing in our civilization for 
which public money can be used, but that, with the 
exception of ignorance, it is also the most expen- 
sive. 

A systematic campaign for better school buildings 



RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 13 

was begun in 1902, and for years one new building 
a day was said to have been added to the State's 
equipment. The state department of education in 
North Carolina has taken active interest in the con- 
struction of modern buildings and has issued detailed 
information, giving plans of school-houses, specifica- 
tions for materials, and estimated costs. 

High schools as well as ungraded schools have felt 
the uplift of the new educational spirit of North Caro- 
lina. Among the many signs of progress is the ap- 
pointment of a State Inspector of Public High Schools 
in 1907, and the evidence of his work in a special hand- 
book for high school teachers, giving courses of study, 
lists of text-books and reference books, with discus- 
sions on various aspects of high school work. 

The recent educational progress of North Carolina 
is built on the State's past. Governor Aycock fre- 
quently quoted from the Bill of Rights of the State 
Constitution : 

The people have the right to the privilege of 
education, and it is the duty of the State to guard 
and maintain that right. 

In one of his speeches Aycock said in a character- 
istic passage: " I have carefully examined the public 
documents from Governor Vance down to the present 
time and I find that I have enunciated no new thought 
and have declared no new principle in advocating uni- 
versal education. My vanity has been lessened by my 
study of what has been said in the past, but my devo- 



14 RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 

Hon to the cause of universal education has been in- 
creased, and I trtcst that I am among those who are 
willing to sacrifice vanity to the good of the people/' 

We note with extreme gratification that Governor 
Aycock's successors in office have shown themselves 
not unmindful of the privilege and the duty of the 
high position which he occupied, and that they have 
used every endeavor to further the worthy ends of 
educational reform. A statement from Governor 
Glenn, who was Aycock's successor, deserves a place 
in this essay : 

Illiteracy, the twin sister to vice, is one of the 
greatest curses, and in itself is often the source of 
evil, while education is power, and shows itself in 
developing our industries as well as expanding our 
minds and elevating our morals. 

From North Carolina have gone men and influences 
that have lighted the path of educational progress 
in other States of the South, and that also have been 
an inspiration to North, East, and West. The genial 
optimism and the likable personal qualities of Charles 
D. Mclver are as a benediction to the generation from 
which he has so lately been taken, and though his 
voice is stilled amongst us, he yet speaketh. Edward 
Alderman, in rare measure, combines solid executive 
capacity and commanding power as an orator. As 
president of the leading institutions in three states he 
has in a peculiar way upheld high ideals of manhood 
and citizenship, and best of all he has been sending 



RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 15 

out into the States trained leaders. Like Aycock, 
Alderman has rare gifts of speech, and these men 
rank among the most conspicuous examples in our 
generation of men with a capacity to state their case. 
Among the North Carolinians who have gone to teach 
the lessons of her progress in broader fields is Walter 
H. Page, whose democracy of education is contained 
in the brief statement: '' It is a shining day in any 
educated man's growth when he comes to see and to 
feel and to know and admit freely that it is just as im- 
portant to the world that the ragamuffin child of his 
worthless neighbor should be trained as it is that his 
own child should be. Until a man sees this he cannot 
be a worthy democrat, nor get a patriotic conception 
of education." Not less important than the accom- 
plishment of the foregoing is the solid constructive 
work of James Y. Joyner, since 1902 Superintendent 
of Public Instruction in North Carolina. Others may 
have planted, but Joyner has tilled and harvested, and 
the new educational crop of North Carolina is a noble 
tribute to his insight, patience, and devoted labor. 
The National Educational Association did well to vote 
him its President in 1909. 

This movement in North Carolina seems typical of 
a new constructive statesmanship in the South. Just 
at the close of the Civil War Robert E. Lee wrote to 
one who complained of the hard fate in store for those 
whom he termed '' us poor Virginians " : '' You can 
work for Virginia, to build her up again, to make her 
great again. You can teach your children to love and 



16 RECLAIMING A COMMONWEALTH. 

cherish her." The great Captain of the Confederacy 
waived outside business opportunity and political office, 
and gave his last years to what he regarded as the 
sacred cause of training the youth in order that there 
might be a greater state in the future. Students of 
conditions in the Southland assure us that there is the 
growth of a sober, balanced judgment, especially with 
regard to the events of the past, in dealing with the 
race question, and in planning for the future of the 
region. Through education the South is entering into 
the heritage of a sounder moral life, a more secure 
political organization, a more highly efficient economic 
system. All honor to the men who have worked and 
who are working to these worthy ends ! 



II. 

Education the Keystone of Power. 

In the dark days that followed 1789 in France 
there went through the streets of Paris a band of chil- 
dren bearing the banner of revolution with the motto, 
'' Tremble, tyrants, for we are growing up !" So, up 
and down the streets of our cities, and in and out of 
the lanes and byways throughout the land an army of 
children says, in effect, to the responsible men of the 
generation, " Tremble, masters, for we are growing 
up !" That the weal of the nation is linked with the 
training of the youth is a truism so often repeated as 
to seem like a platitude. Yet at times its force is re- 
vealed anew in the realm of morals or of pure intellect, 
or in the field of political or economic activity. 

On every side there is agreement that under modern 
conditions, the geographical position and natural re- 
sources of countries as well as the native aptitude of 
people count for relatively less and less, and that it is 
supremely important for a nation to develop the power 
to utilize its resources and secure from the outside the 
things in which it is deficient. A desire to know how 
Americans can pay a dollar a day in wages where 
Englishmen pay but a shilling, while the American 
surpasses his English competitor in the open market, 

17 



18 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

has sent to this country two commissions of English 
experts; and more recently Mr. Alfred Mosely, who 
brought these commissions, was of the opinion that 
an answer to his inquiry could be found only by send- 
ing a large number of British teachers to study the 
American nation at school. 

" Whatever you would have appear in a nation's 
life, that you must put into its schools," is finding gen- 
eral acceptance; but this doctrine raises all sorts of 
questions. The most perplexing of these questions 
are, What should we have in a nation's life? and, 
when this is determined. How shall it be put into the 
schools? Schools both reflect existing national ideals 
and create new ideals. Thus a nation, through its 
schools, tends to perpetuate itself, and thus a system 
of education is born of the genius of a people. This 
is necessarily of slow growth, and deeply rooted in 
national traditions. There is no '' brand " of educa- 
tion that can be shipped from country to country, and 
applied to different peoples under diverse conditions. 

But more than this, no single form of education is 
adequate for the complex life of one nation. And 
again a system of education, however elaborate, de- 
vised for one period, is not applicable to the people 
for whom it was devised in successive periods. Thus 
it is in the words of Milton,, that " education is the 
noblest design that can be thought on," and " for the 
want whereof a nation perishes." 

Improved means of communication, the competition 
incident to the opening-up of new regions, the removal 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 19 

of national barriers, numerous international expositions 
where the results of education have been presented, 
these are some of the recent events which give special 
point to a consideration of what is the real basis of 
power in a modern nation. 

EDUCATION AMERICA'S DOMINANT INTEREST. 

In 1820, Daniel Webster proclaimed that every man 
should be taxed for the support of schools as a police 
protection, and this whether he had any children to 
be educated or not. From this time, interest in edu- 
cation has grown in the United States until it is the 
chief concern of our public administration and social 
effort. We agree with the statement made by an 
American man of letters, that the United States is the 
most common-schooled nation in the world. Yet, the 
common-schools, so-called, by no means circumscribe 
our educational activities. Schools to train for efficient 
life are found to be cheaper than almshouses, asylums, 
and prisons to care for the incompetent, the unfor- 
tunate, and the vicious. On every hand is coming to 
be accepted the sentiment which is writ large over a 
great institution in the American state which perhaps 
has done most for education, " The Commonwealth 
Requires the Education of the People as the Safe- 
guard of Order and Liberty." 

EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN ENGLAND. 

Of late, education has been a foremost public ques- 



20 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

tion in England. The Government repeatedly made 
a school bill its principal measure, over which the 
public has been almost as deeply stirred as over Irish 
Affairs, the South African War, the Fiscal Policy, or 
any other measure of a decade. Back of the agitation 
that has accompanied the debates on the English school 
bills is the feeling that education is somehow unsatis- 
factory. Just why and how schools are bad, and what 
should be done to improve them, are matters of dis- 
agreement, but the English public knows that educa- 
tion is in need of revision. 

It is more than a decade since that superb educa- 
tional leader, Michael E. Sadler, began his work as 
Director of Special Inquiries and Reports on Educa- 
tional Subjects. Report followed report, comparing 
English education with that in foreign countries and 
pointing out deficiencies in English schools. In ad- 
dition to these reports, numerous commissions have 
visited the United States and the Continent, and have 
reported that England makes inadequate educational 
provision. By degrees, and in various ways, the idea 
of reforming education has made its way, and this 
idea has now expressed itself in a public question of 
first importance. 

In brief, the opinion has grown that the creation of 
a system of caste is now the greatest defect of English 
education. For the aristocracy by birth, the schools 
are good, and these have trained the leaders ; but these 
schools are not accessible to all, and the other schools 
are bad. Some of the private schools in England are 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 21 

of the best in the world, but they are classical in spirit 
and emphasis, and are only for the sons of persons of 
means. These schools, with the universities, train 
men for the church, the army and the navy, the literary 
and liberal professions, and public life. Between those 
trained in these schools, and those not so trained, there 
is a social barrier. It was a class spirit, born of edu- 
cation, that prompted the Englishman's prayer that 
men should be content with the station in which Provi- 
dence has placed them. 

Englishmen realize that the church and the classics 
have shackled education, and that there is in their 
country a woeful lack of schools that give an equality 
of educational opportunity in preparation for life. 
The nation is found weak in provisions for study of 
the mother tongue, science, and the modern languages. 
Honors in the private schools and the universities are 
given largely for classics and mathematics, but what 
we know as modern secondary schools, with up-to-date 
curricula and accessible to the sons of the people, have 
been almost unknown in England. Cecil Rhodes ex- 
pressed the conservative sentiment of Englishmen 
when he said, '' If Englishmen would stop learning 
foreign languages, foreigners would be compelled to 
learn English." But it should be noted, England's 
needs for foreign languages have grown constantly. 

The recent educational bills provided, among other 
things, for better administration and increased support 
of schools, for the taking of private schools under public 
control ; and there seems to be a tendency to withdraw 



22 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

public money from church schools. Americans will 
readily discern in these bills the features of their state 
educational systems. Germany, France, and the 
United States have long recognized the dominance of 
the state in education, but England makes only partial 
and tardy recognition of the same principle. 

The educational bill of 1908 was the fourth on this 
subject of the Government which introduced it. The 
thought that religious differences at last had been 
compromised gave much elation when the bill was 
made public, but it soon appeared that extreme Angli- 
cans and Nonconformists alike were dissatisfied, while 
Romanists, and those without religious affiliations, ob- 
jected because they had not been considered in the 
compromise. The opposition gathered so quickly and 
with such force that the Government withdrew the 
bill, and the reflection remains, whether the religious 
differences of England can ever be so harmonized as 
to make religion an acceptable subject of instruction 
in the government schools. An American naturally 
asks why England does not extend and perfect her 
state education on a purely secular and ethical basis 
and leave religious education to the church and the 
home. 

English private schools for boys may well excite 
admiration. At their best, and for those who are so 
favored as to attend them, they are, of their class, 
probably, the finest schools in the world. These 
schools have had no slight part in forming the re- 
sourceful, dogged Englishman, who for two genera- 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 23 

tions has made his power felt. The modern era of 
these schools began when Thomas Arnold went to 
Rugby. Arnold showed himself not only the greatest 
schoolmaster of modern times, but, through the schools, 
he has exercised a lasting influence on the British 
nation. 

The English schoolboy's normal life is to attend a 
primary school or to remain in the hands of a governess 
or tutor until he is ten, when he is placed at a board- 
ing school called a preparatory school. Here he re- 
mains until he is fourteen, at which age he is trans- 
ferred to the so-called public school. 

" Public school " is one of the forms of private 
schools in England. The usual period at the public 
school IS from fourteen to eighteen years, and at eigh- 
teen the youth enters his chosen university. '' Tom 
Brown's School Days," " Stalky & Co.," and biogra- 
phies of great Englishmen have made the names of 
Rugby, Eton, Harrow, Winchester, St. Paul's, and 
others familiar. We know these schools for their 
work, we know them for their play, the " pastoral in- 
fluence " of the masters, the friendships formed, the 
lasting impress for noble living, and knowing these 
things we say, it is well to have been an English 
schoolboy. 

A tradition of the English schools for boys makes 
the higher forms or classes responsible for the disci- 
pline and the general tone of the institutions. Mem- 
bership in the upper classes brings both duties and 
privileges. These schools thus train for leadership 



24 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

and give a sturdy self-reliance which has proved of 
large service to the nation. 

The English preparatory school is objected to, first, 
because it takes boys from home and places them in 
an institution at too early an age. Lads here are filled 
with Latin to the neglect of subjects which would in- 
terest them in the world in which they live. The char- 
acter of the public school is largely determined by the 
institutions which are above and below it. The Eng- 
lish universities have failed of their largest usefulness 
through an over-emphasis of the conventional classics 
and mathematics, but, of late, tendencies are toward 
practical studies even in such ancient seats of learning 
as Oxford and Cambridge. 

In industry, England was long content to depend 
upon her leaders and the machines which they in- 
vented. As compared with Germany, she has given 
slight heed to the " human machine." The First 
Royal Commission on Technical Education pointed to 
the fact that by the neglect of suitable training for 
her population, England was at a distinct disadvan- 
tage, for other nations with superior men could buy 
the English machines and easily outstrip her. This 
Commission strongly urged what the thoughtful Eng- 
lishmen have been urging for almost a generation — a 
larger attention to science and art and the application 
of these to practical affairs. In 1902, great progress 
was made in the passing of a new Technical Educa- 
tion Act which eliminated local divisions and con- 
flicting control and unified the system of education for 
industry. 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER, 25 

The greatest weakness of English education, and a 
cause for present concern, is the abandonment of those 
who cannot attend pay schools as educational outcasts. 
English free schools are conspicuously inferior to pay 
schools. Attention to education has been forced upon 
England by practical necessity. Over-sea interests of 
the nation, '' her varying life and changing purpose," 
what has been termed England's '' two-mindedness," 
her necessity for economic efficiency and commercial 
enterprise, as well as for military strength, literary 
achievement and missionary zeal — these have shown 
that England cannot maintain her proud place by edu- 
cating only her leaders. The '' Made in Germany " 
cry of the late nineties, and the ''American Peril " agi- 
tation of more recent years, have helped to awaken 
the nation to the truth of Mr. Alfred Mosely's conclu- 
sion that in addition to what is now being done to 
educate the favored few, more education and more 
practical education is necessary for the masses. Re- 
cent educational movements have sought to supple- 
ment, not supplant, the schools that have done so 
much for England. 

MODERN GERMAN EDUCATION. 

The defeat at Jena, early in the nineteenth century, 
marked the turning-point in German educational his- 
tory. Territory and prestige were gone ; power and 
glory were no more. But the Emperor sounded the 
call for a new Germany. '' We must regain at home," 
he said, ** what we have lost abroad," and his method 



26 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

for regaining what had been lost was through educa- 
tion. The Emperor proclaimed that he desired noth- 
ing so much as the instruction of his people. In 1866 
Matthew Arnold declared that German education 
could not fail to arouse the foreigner's admiration, yet 
educational progress has been more rapid in the last 
forty years than it was in the previous sixty. The 
present Emperor has done much to make more effec- 
tive the policy begun by Frederick William III. In 
a hundred years education has rehabilitated the Ger- 
man Empire. 

A German boy at six enters a public elementary 
school where he remains for three or four years, or he 
may enter a private school, or a preparatory de- 
partment of some higher school. At nine or ten the 
lad may continue in a town school for four years ad- 
ditional, or he may go to a so-called high school for a 
six or a nine-year course, or he may go to a private 
school of a grade corresponding to some one of the 
schools here mentioned. Where he will go depends 
upon the means of his parents and their ambition for 
their boy. The town school is free and is a direct con- 
tinuation of the public elementary school. 

The minimum of educational requirement in Ger- 
many is a completion of the course at the town school, 
and in many districts additional attendance upon what 
are termed continuation schools. These latter are de- 
signed to continue the education of those who are 
compelled to go to work at about fourteen, and in- 
struction in them is given in the early morning, in the 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 27 

late afternoon, or in the evening. The compulsory 
attendance feature of continuation schools varies; in 
Saxony attendance is required for three years, in 
Prussia until the youth is eighteen. , 

Boarding schools for boys are not common in Ger- 
many. Nor is any form of private school independent 
there. All teachers must be licensed by the Govern- 
ment, and those in private schools, as well as in public, 
are required to be specially trained. The Government 
school inspectors visit private schools and exercise rig- 
orous supervision over them. In considering schools 
in Germany one finds the reverse of the conditions in 
England; private schools in Germany are inferior to 
public schools, and are not in high favor. In the city 
of Munich, for example, there are but three hundred 
children in attendance in private schools and seventy 
thousand in the public schools. In that city attend- 
ance upon private schools is allowed only on certificate 
issued by the city superintendent of schools. Such cer- 
tificates, the superintendent reports, are issued only to 
delicate and nervous children. 

The institutions of chief interest in Germany are the 
public high schools. In part these are state-supported 
schools, and in part they are supported by the com- 
munities in which they are located; in case of local 
establishment, these schools are aided by state subven- 
tions. These public schools are not entirely free, those 
who attend being required to pay a fee usually of 
about twenty dollars a year. The Government appro- 
priates for each student an amount somewhat larger 
than the amount he is required to pay. 



28 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

Of the higher schools there are three sorts : the 
severely classical, with a strong emphasis on Latin 
and Greek; the modern, with Latin and' one modern 
language, and with an emphasis on mathematics and 
science; and the modern without Latin, with a strong 
emphasis on modern languages and literature and 
science. For each of these t5^pes of school there is an 
official six-year and a nine-year plan of studies, so 
arranged that a student can continue for the last three 
years after the completion of the first six. The clas- 
sical school for nine years, called the gymnasium, and 
the modern school for six years, called the realschule, 
are the extremes of the German higher education. 

In 1900, the Emperor issued a rescript on education 
which was, in brief, a protest against the dominance 
of the gymnasia. He declared that the ideal for Ger- 
man education should not be to make good Greeks or 
good Romans, but to make good Germans. Education, 
he asserted, should not train men to see the world 
through a pair of spectacles, but through their own 
eyes. German schools were charged with failing to 
develop the power to deal with practical affairs, and 
it was directed that more attention be given to such 
subjects as the mother tongue, modern languages, 
science and geography. To give effect to his procla- 
mation, the Emperor ordered that the exclusive privi- 
leges hitherto enjoyed by the classical gymnasia should 
be abolished, and that the certificates of other schools 
of equal grade be admitted to like privileges with the 
certificates of the gymnasia. 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 29 

The most interesting recent development in German 
education is the rise and influence of the realschulen. 
These grew out of the trade schools; they were first 
recognized by the Prussian Government in 1882, and 
in 1892 they were given their present names. Addi- 
tional favors have been extended to the graduates of 
these schools until the privileges from them are prac- 
tically the same as the privileges from the gymnasia. 
The realschulen idea is in such high favor that a recent 
observer terms it, " the darling of the Prussian edu- 
cational department." 

The favors extended to graduates of the realschulen, 
such as exemption from two years of compulsory mili- 
tary service, the opening of numerous civil service 
positions, admission to the universities and other higher 
institutions, etc., have drawn pupils to them until at 
present they have nearly, or quite, forty thousand in 
attendance; over one hundred thousand are in the 
gymnasia and about eighty thousand are in the schools 
that have Latin but not Greek. One direct resul.t of 
the existence of these various forms of higher schools 
with equal privileges is the carrying of a relatively 
large number through the higher schools, and sending 
them on to the universities and higher technical insti- 
tutions. 

A recent educational development of interest in Ger- 
many is the reform in the higher schools for girls. 
Beginning with 1 908, women were admitted into the 
German universities on substantially the same terms 
as men, and this immediately presented a new educa- 



30 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

tional problem for the girls' schools. In consequence 
of the new policy, girls* higher schools are now being 
extended and modified. One party seeks to make the 
girls' schools as nearly as possible like the boys' 
schools. Another — and it would seem a wiser group — 
would make the girls' schools distinctive and have their 
curricula- and methods determined by the special needs 
of women. A somewhat bitter controversy has gone 
on as to how the girls' schools shall be shaped. It is 
obvious that no matter which of the opposing factions 
shall prevail, education for women in Germany will be 
the gainer. The reform which is just begun bids fair 
ultimately to change the social and economic position 
of the German woman. The second year following 
the new regulation saw a marked increase in the num- 
ber of women students attending German universities. 

It will be noticed that the German child who is to 
study a foreign language begins at nine or ten, while 
an American child would likely not begin until four 
or five years later. The cumulative effect of nine 
years of language study in the same school, and 
directed to the same end, produces in the German an 
intellectual power and an efficiency in handling the 
language not realized in American schools. No doubt- 
this statement might be applied with equal truth to 
other subjects of study. 

One must visit classes in German schools to appre- 
ciate how admirable are their methods of language 
teaching, and how notable are their results. The for- 
eigner is most impressed with the so-called natural 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 31 

method of studying languages. Probably the best ex- 
ponent of this method is Dr. Max Walter, the Director 
of the Muster schule in Frankfort-on-Main. Dr. Wal- 
ter has been proceeding on the theory that a modern 
language should be studied before Latin because it is 
easier, and that it is the natural order to proceed from 
the less difficult to the more difficult. He also holds 
to use of the language being studied from the start, 
and seeks to reach the grammar through the language 
rather than the use of the language through the gram- 
mar. It was the writer's privilege to spend some days 
with Dr. Walter and to observe his method with be- 
ginning and advanced classes in French and English. 
In brief, it can be said that all the pupils learn to read 
and speak the language studied, and many of them 
do so with remarkable accuracy and confidence. The 
further observation was made that all the pupils en- 
joyed the language study and entered with spirit into 
the class exercise. Similar results were found else- 
where, and in the mastery of a language one may well 
say that the German schools furnish the keynote of 
power. 

German technical education is extensive and ad- 
mirable. First are the continuation schools mentioned 
above, supported in part by grants of public funds and 
in part by fees from the employers of those to be edu- 
cated. One division of the continuation school is gen- 
eral, for the direct following-up of the instruction in 
the town schools, but the special forms of these schools 
are the most important. Continuation schools are of 



32 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER^. 

two sorts : voluntary, for those who have passed the 
required age, and compulsory, for those who have not 
yet reached it. 

Instruction is given in the continuation and trade 
schools covering the principal trades and occupations. 
Foresters, carpenters, cabinet-makers, printers, brew- 
ers, weavers, clerks, policemen, and many other work- 
men are trained in these schools. A detailed exam- 
ination of the continuation schools in the city of 
Munich shows that more than forty branches of trade 
instruction are provided in that city alone. 

Parallel with the continuation schools are the middle 
technical day schools for those who can give their full 
time to school work. These take boys averaging about 
fourteen and keep them for three years. Courses in 
these schools are almost as diverse as are those in the 
continuation schools. Often the same building and 
equipment are used for both these classes of schools, 
their hours not conflicting. 

Above the middle technical schools are numerous 
great technical high schools, and a large number of 
separate higher schools for special trades and indus- 
tries, such as mining, agriculture, forestry, veterinary 
medicine, art, commerce, army and navy, and colonial 
administration. Each of these trades or callings is 
represented by a separate institution; and instruction 
preparatory to the callings just named, as well as to 
various branches of engineering and technology, is 
offered also in each of the technical high schools. 

German education in its entirety is a magnificent 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 33 

system, and it is bearing its fruits. In brief, it is 
organized to furnish both general training and an 
equipment for the particular thing which is to be done. 
One who had recently traveled extensively in Germany 
and in our own country said that if fifty million Amer- 
icans were placed within the borders of the German 
Empire they would die of starvation ; yet, he said, 
fifty million Germans were there, a thrifty and con- 
tented people. German emigration has diminished; 
Germans are trained to work at home and send their 
goods abroad, and Germany has become a potent fac- 
tor in modern industrial and commercial affairs; but 
education is the chief corner-stone in Germany's pres- 
ent prosperity. 

According to Coleridge, the ideal of German educa- 
tion is the training of intelligent, obedient, '' organiz- 
able," and useful subjects. German schoolmasters have 
aimed to cultivate a true love of learning, and also to 
make learning serve useful ends, and they have had 
marked success. Without doubt Germany has devel- 
oped the highest average intellectual capacity of any 
nation in modern times. She has also given to her 
people, as a whole, a greater skill for work than has 
been given to the people of any other country. 

But to an American, German education seems to 
convert a virtue into a vice ; her elaborate system lacks 
the spontaneity which we regard as a first requisite. 
German subjects are '' organizable," but there is in 
the Empire an obvious tendency toward militarism, 
officialism, and socialism. Germans are methodical 



34 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

and deliberate, but as a nation they seem wanting in 
the initiative and alertness which will, we believe, in 
the long run, overcome the greatest obstacles and 
achieve the largest success. 

THE FRENCH SYSTEM. 

In seeking to perpetuate national traditions, French 
schools long made tradition into a fetish. The honor- 
able thing in France has been the Government service, 
and education aimed at producing good officials. As 
a result, the utilitarian in education is despised as 
tending to the vylgar, and a social distinction is fixed 
by the school one attends. There has long been in 
France a type of man best described by the word func- 
tionary, and though education is changing the type 
somewhat, this man is still common. He is wanting in 
personal aims and ambition ; he lives to take orders. 

In the organization of an international jury of 
awards at a recent world's fair, one of these French 
public officials was appointed vice-chairman. It later 
developed that this vice-chairmanship had been prom- 
ised to the representative of another nation, and soon 
an international complication arose. The Frenchman 
resigned, as his commissioner-general directed him to 
do, and forthwith a German, who felt that his nation 
had not been fairly dealt with, demanded the place; 
but the Frenchman reclaimed his position, and when 
asked to explain his action he made a statement that 
revealed a system of education and the character of a 
people. He said : " I am not vice-chairman ; I am 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 35 

vice-chairman ; I resign ; I do not resign ; I am a victim 
on the altar of diplomacy." The German, in a tower- 
ing rage, protested against this proceeding, demanding 
action, and waving the rules before the jury, he fairly 
shouted, " It is the law !" As one watched these men, 
the representatives of education for their respective 
countries, he felt that in a way they typified their 
nations — one vacillating and dallying, the other blunt 
and honest, even to brutality. 

French training for clearness and accuracy of ex- 
pression is unsurpassed. Many French philosophical 
and scientific works are marvels of lucidity, and they 
have at the same time an accuracy that makes them 
the more remarkable. Prof. Barrett Wendell remarks 
that French scholars are not " swamped " by their 
facts, and points out that with their scientific correct- 
ness they retain " the dynamic quality of mental 
habit." We may well share Professor Wendell's feel- 
ing that it would be a gain to American scholarship if 
more American students who study abroad would at- 
tend the French universities. 

Late French elections indicate that schools are 
wielding an increasing influence in that country. De- 
spite ecclesiastical complications and army scandals, 
the Government has been supported, and France is 
found to have more stability than she once possessed. 
M. Jaures offers an explanation of a late vote : '' It is 
the grammar school and the high school teachers," he 
says, " that have spoken to France through their pupils 
during the last quarter of a century, and henceforth a 



36 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

new political fortune awaits the country. For twenty- 
five years the schools have been fashioning real repub- 
licans. The young man of thirty spoke with such firm 
accents that he became at once the master of France." 

THE SCHOOLS AT PLAY. 

When the Invincible Armada sailed into the Chan- 
nel in 1588 the English commanders were engaged in 
a game of competitive sport which they felt they must 
finish before going forth to do battle for the nation. 
And these English proved the better fighters because 
of the qualities which the games developed. Afte^ 
Waterloo, Wellington remarked that the English 
cricket-field had won. It was the waiting power of 
the Englishman, his sinking of self and action with 
his fellows that had triumphed, and these are qualities 
developed by the English school games. French edu- 
cation may have something to teach Americans, Ger- 
man education surely has much, but in organizing 
school games and getting the value from these, Amer- 
ica can give useful lessons to both France and Ger- 
many. 

School games have developed into an institution for 
education in England and in the United States, and 
though sometimes abused, they are an important fea- 
ture of school life. By competitive sport boys learn 
manliness and self-control; in team-play selfishness is 
overcome; boys forget self and play that their team 
may win. So important do games and other outside 
interests become in some English and American schools 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 37 

that lessons are in danger of becoming a side issue, 
and yet we dare to believe that many of these are ad- 
mirable schools. The " play fair " and ''don't cry " 
spirit which. games can, and do, develop may become 
of first importance as a means of education. 

The school sports have made it possible for school- 
masters to come close to those in their charge. In the 
old-time boarding-school the masters were regarded as 
the boys' natural enemies — the men who went stealth- 
ily about in soft-soled shoes to surprise boys and spy 
out their doings. In place of these have come, as 
masters, athletic college men who, as a friend of the 
boys, mix freely with them in their games, and meet 
them in dormitory and classroom as man to man. 
These men have not gone down to the level of the 
boys; they have brought the boys to a higher level; 
their example is a most positive force for education. 

The capacity to play hard and thus to find relaxa- 
tion is necessary to the nation that is to work hard. 
Demolins, in his "Anglo-Saxon Superiority," asserts 
that there is nothing comparable to an Englishman's 
working power, unless it is his resting power. Both 
Americans and Englishmen learn to play while at 
their schools, and this is a lesson not so well learned 
in Germany and France. An Englishman recently 
went to a German football game, and though the game 
was played near two large cities, and under conditions 
that would quite likely have brought out from fifteen 
to twenty thousand spectators in the United States, 
there were in Germany but sixty-five present. In this 



3S EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

? '^ M 
country the spectators would have been wildly excited, 

and the players self-contained, but in Germany the 
spectators had only a passing interest, and the players 
gave evidence of great excitement, constantly gesticu- 
lating and calling to their team-mates. 

The evil of competitive school sport in this countiy 
grows out of a desire to win at any price, and against 
this both school authorities and the public should reso- 
lutely set themselves. Not fewer, but more, school 
games ; not every effort bent to the perfection of a few 
picked players and making heroes of these, but the 
participation of a large number in the games ; not any- 
thing to win, but honor first and always — these are 
some of the fundamentals by which school sports 
should be governed that they may be more useful as 
factors in education. 

EDUCATIONAL AIMS. 

Education, can have no higher aim than character- 
forming, and character must be expressed in action. 
Thus education is more than ''teaching people to know 
what they do not know;" it is leading them to do as 
they would not otherwise do. An educated man is one 
" trained to cooperate in the purposes of human prog- 
ress." What one is, is more important than what he 
knows, for what he is determines how he will act. 
The best education for an individual and a nation is 
that which is translated into worthy, useful living. 

An Englishman says that the German test for an 
individual's education is what he knows; the French 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 39 

test is what examination he has passed; the English, 
what sort of a fellow he is; and the American, what 
can he do? Americans may be well content to retain 
and perfect their own standard. Knowledge, skill and 
character should be put to the test of doing. 

The best American schools have followed the best 
English schools in giving much attention to the rest, 
food, games, etc., of. their pupils. The masters in 
these schools regard the work in the classroom as per- 
haps the least important of their duties. The school 
life is a world-in-little; pupils who aid in the manage- 
ment of the school thus learn the first lessons of leader- 
ship. By this kind of education there has been pro- 
duced the political leader in England and the type of 
man recently coming to the fore in our own public life. 
The aim of these schools is the all-around develop- 
ment of the individual, and their product is to be de- 
sired rather than the German mechanical type or the 
French functionary. 

But the weakness of English and American educa- 
tion is the tendency to rejoice over one '' lad of pairts " 
and to neglect the larger body of those to be educated. 
'' Think of the multitudes that have been lost," was a 
stock saying of Colonel Parker, one of the great edu- 
cational reformers of his generation. After the ex- 
tension of suffrage in England a far-seeing statesman 
exclaimed, '' Now we must educate our masters." 
Woe betide the future if the people as masters are not 
given the desire and the capacit}/ to do right things. 
Education must, of necessity, be diverse and have 



40 ED UCA TION THE KE YSTONE OF PO WER. 

diverse aims, for it is teaching to live, and in these 
times life is complex and many-sided; but all schools 
should have in common the aim of teaching men to 
live worthily. 

The highest ideal for American schools was ex- 
pressed by one of the finest products of these schools 
in our time. In his address to sixteen hundred boys 
at the dedication of the new Central High School 
building in Philadelphia, President Roosevelt exhorted 
his hearers to work hard and play hard. His senti- 
ment of that day has passed into a proverb, and it 
may well become a watchword of our education, 
" Don't flinch, don't foul, and hit the line hard." 

Of late we have heard of a fourteenth-century 
society devoted to education, known as '' Breth- 
ern of the Common Life." At first this brotherhood 
concerned itself only with religious education, but it 
widened its purpose until it became a part of the gen- 
eral educational movement which resulted in the Re- 
naissance and the rise of universities. The name of 
this organization well expresses the purposes of mod- 
ern education, which are, in brief, to train men to dis- 
charge their obligations to, and participate in, a life 
common with their fellows. Thus, education comes to 
be more complex with a steady growth of the com- 
plexities in the social order. Thus, also are we forced 
to the conclusion that there is no '' absolute code " in 
education, for any subject, for all time, or for all 
peoples. No longer is the doctrine popular that it is 
necessary to train only the leaders. John Morley 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 41 

urges a significant truth when he says that the chances 
for the exceptional genius are highest in a society 
where " the average interest, curiosity and capacity 
are all the highest." The aims of our education should 
be not to train for a political democracy alone, as has 
been so largely true in England, but to equip for a 
social democracy as well. 

The public schools best express the genius of Amer- 
ican rlemocracy. To the question. What is the chief 
industry of the United States? an American foreign 
minister replied. Education. Our intense interest in 
schools is evidenced first in the liberal support ex- 
tended to them, but the interest does not end here. 
Edward Everett termed the common schools of his 
time '' invaluable for their commonness." The com- 
mon schools are the schools of the common life and 
purpose of the nation. European countries with small 
territorial extent, a tolerably fixed population, and 
well-defined social classes, scarcely realize the difficul- 
ties presented to America with her extensive and 
widely dissimilar territory, and her mixed population 
drawn from all the principal countries of the world. 
A foreign observer notes that our population is as dis- 
similar as are the physical areas of the country. The 
only possibility of our becoming and remaining a 
nation is that the schools shall serve as a " crucible " 
in which these mixed social classes may be fused. The 
American high school is a striking illustration of the 
equality of educational opportunity and of the level- 
ing effects of education. This school stands as the 



42 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

" open door " to the professions, to increased intellec- 
tual power and to higher industrial and commercial 
efficiency; and it is the school of the people, free and 
on the same terms to rich and poor, to those whose 
lineage is drawn from generations of Americans and 
to the recently-arrived immigrant. Here is given the 
preparation for a common purpose and a higher life. 

During the last* twenty-five years there are unmis- 
takable evidences of the coming together of the acad- 
emic and the practical in all grades of schools. This, 
as we might wish, is to the gain of both elements. 
Much of the lament is heard for the old-fashioned 
common school with its three R's ; but the music, draw- 
ing, manual training and cooking introduced into the 
elementary schools have not stood in the way of re- 
sults as satisfactory as ever were secured in the old 
academic branches. Recently there was found a set 
of examination questions and the answers given to 
them in Springfield, Mass., in 1846, and these same 
questions were set for the pupils of a corresponding 
grade in a modern school. The results show that 
pupils now spell and figure as well as did those fifty 
years ago, and that present-day children do not fall 
below their predecessors in knowledge of geography. 
But what this test did not show is that pupils now 
know vastl}^ more things than ^\d their predecessors. 

The various types of the vocational high school have 
not disregarded academic interests. They have taken 
these interests and given them direct application. 
Manual training, commercial and technical high 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 43 

schools are only giving new force and vigor to old 
knowledge. Similarly the higher technical schools 
are based on the science and the mathematics of the 
so-called academic education. Nor is this all. With 
the best representatives of the technical and vocational 
education there is a firm conviction that the literary, 
and what have long been termed cultural, elements in 
training are a requisite if the man of affairs is to have 
his largest successes. 

An unmistakable tendency of schools everywhere is 
to equip men for their vocations. President Roosevelt 
said to a company of educators in 1908 that they were 
to train towards the farm and workshop and not away 
from them, and this indicates the trend. In Germany 
education for vocations has been longer established 
and it has had a fuller development than in other coun- 
tries, and it has as a consequence shown more marked 
results than elsewhere. In addition to the various gov- 
ernment activities for technical education in Germany, 
numerous guilds, chambers of commerce and the like, 
contribute to the same end. This indicates a much 
more prevalent sentiment for this kind of education 
than exists in other lands. As a result of this instruc- 
tion, and under present conditions, Germany occupies 
practically an unassailable position among the indus- 
trial nations of the world. 

But there is much to give satisfaction in our own 
educational outlook. Our system is not so cut and 
dried as are the systems of foreign countries, and it 
does not produce the same rigidity and formalism. It 



44 EUU CATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

leaves much more to the individual than does the train- 
ing of any other nation. Eliot, Harris, Butler, and 
other interpreters of our educational progress dwell on 
spontaneity as a keynote. This has resulted in part 
from Anglo-Saxon characteristics. No doubt it has 
also been affected by the enormous material riches of 
our continent. 

But we should bear in mind that these riches are 
not inexhaustible and that our methods have resulted 
in much waste and extravagance, as well as some ineffi- 
ciency and self-complacency. As our population in- 
creases and becomes more congested, our schools grow 
larger and grave dangers arise from platooning the 
pupils, and the loss of that individual power which 
was once the strength of our education. This necessi- 
tates more careful formal training than we have given 
heretofore. 

American schools are not without serious faults. 
Their product seems more impelled to act than to 
think, or to act first and think afterwards. It is too 
largely an American ideal that every man is to gain 
distinction by beating the record of his predecessor, 
and then continuing to beat his own record. 

So far as our schools have set themselves a definite 
purpose, it is to train for political rather than economic 
life. This is well exemplified in the almost constant 
appeal for the scholar in politics, education in democ- 
racy, etc. Horace Mann declared the ideal in a state- 
ment : '* No man is worthy the honored name of states- 
man who does not include the highest practicable edu- 
cation of the peo23le in all his plans of administration." 



EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 45 

Only of late are we coming to an acceptance of the 
truth that industrial and commercial competition are 
to be the warfare of the future. But there is a larger 
truth than this expressed by Commissioner Draper 
when he says : " Let us make our industries contribute 
not only to our wealth and to our strength, but to our 
manhood as well." 

As compared with Europe, the United States is most 
fortunate in being freed from large expense for a 
military system, and in having the money thus saved 
to use for education. A continental journal states that 
France spends five times as much for her army as for 
her schools, Germany three times as much, Austria 
four times as much, and Italy twice as much. Swit- 
zerland is said to be the only European country spend- 
ing more for schools than for her military system. 

Americans should realize their advantages. We 
have unexampled opportunities from our isolation, 
from our cheap and abundant raw material, from our 
freedom from the precedent of conventional restraint. 
Mr. Omer Buyse of Charleroi, Belgium, after a de- 
tailed study of American educational methods, writes 
as follows : "I am of the opinion that you possess 
strongly characterized Systems of Education, the out- 
come of your national spirit. And from your ways, 
we Europeans have much to learn. I even express 
the hope that you should continue in the same progres- 
sive Avay and avoid, as much as possible, European 
influence, which would disturb the admirable concord- 
ance between your systems and your national spirit." 



46 EDUCATION THE KEYSTONE OF POWER. 

We should be more ready than are foreign investi- 
gators to acknowledge that we have much to learn 
from foreign systems, and holding fast to what is best 
in our own education, adapt the established and useful 
practices of other peoples, and make our schools more 
and more the keystone of our moral, our political, and 
our economic power. 



III. 

Old and New Education. 

Not infrequently the question arises, What is the 
so-called new education, and how does it differ from 
the education long established? Education for its 
own sake, cultural education — a name given to the old 
training — is commonly arrayed as necessarily hostile 
to applied education for agriculture, industry and 
commerce. Indeed, we have separate schools for each : 
for the old, — classical high schools, classical colleges, 
gj/mnasiajlycee, etc. ; for the new, — commercial schools, 
manual training schools, technical schools, scientific 
schools, trade schools, realschulen, colleges commu- 
naleSy etc. 

The Hebrew " speaker in assemblies '' declared that 
there is no new thing under the sun, and affirmed of 
a thing thought to be new that it hath been long ago 
in the ages which were before. At times we talk of 
new schools of art and literature and new systems of 
education as though they were real things, and yet 
when we begin to examine the old, and note a compar- 
ison, we find that the supposed new is surprisingly like 
that which has preceded, and that in all branches of 
modern life we are only living up to the accomplish- 
ments and the promises of the long ago. 

47 



48 OLD AND NEW EDUCATION. 

But more than this, the development of a later age 
is often necessary that we may understand the full 
meaning of what was earlier said and done. Of 
genius, it may be ajffirmed that it expresses eternal 
truth, but in a language often unintelligible to its own 
time. It is only the unfolding of life in a later age 
which gives the experience from which can be under- 
stood the larger meaning of a great truth. Poets were 
long ago reputed to express wise things which they 
did not themselves understand. The supreme achieve- 
ment of literature is the universalizing of an era — the 
projection of an age, and the binding of it both to the 
past and the future. Thus it is that truly great writ- 
ings are always modern — thus life is enlarging and 
each epoch furnishes that which enables us better to 
understand the universal truth of earlier times. 

The modern loose-leaf ledger, and card-index led- 
ger systems are but an adaptation of the clay-tablet 
method of keeping accounts practised in Babylonia 
more than four thousand years ago, and the Babylon- 
ian tablets were superior to the modern devices in that 
they did not require fire-proof safes. Seals, witnesses, 
" consideration," security, and many other phases of 
modern contract proceedings are all found in the early 
dawn of history. As one looks further he finds that 
many so-called modern business customs find their 
precursors and their suggestion in practices of the 
hoary past. 

The industries of antiquity challenge admiration for 
artistic conception, and skill in execution. Weaving, 



OLD AND NEW EDUCATION. 49 

dyeing, carving, and metal work were in ancient times 
so marvelously developed as to give suitability to the 
term '' the lost arts." 

If for a moment we turn our thoughts to the eco- 
nomic organization of modern society there is little to 
excite our admiration by way of newness. As econo- 
mists we talk of trusts as an essentially modern phe- 
nomenon, and assert that they are the consequence of 
new methods in the production and exchange of goods, 
but on examination we find that the monopoly privi- 
lege has been bestowed upon their favorites by rulers 
from time immemorial, and that those who operated 
these monopolies were actuated by the same motives 
that lie back of the modern trust. The Tudors in Eng- 
land gave privileges until necessities as well as luxuries 
were in the grasp of those moved by their own greed 
rather than the general good. Iron, oil, vinegar, coal, 
leather, yarn, glass, and many other articles were in- 
cluded. No sovereign bestowed monopolist privileges 
more freely than did Elizabeth, and no event of her 
marvelous reign is more striking or fraught with 
larger meaning than was her tardy withdrawal of these 
privileges on petition from the Commons. 

Legislation for the regulation of monopolies was 
enacted in the time of the First James, but the abuses 
did not disappear. The whole question was later dis- 
cussed by Sir John Culpepper in a. speech before the 
Long Parliament. He gave an extended list of these 
privileges and particularized as to their influence, 
speaking in general terms that present anti-trust agi- 



50 OLD AND NEW EDUCATION. 

tators might find suited to express their sentiments : 
" They are a nest of wasps ... a swarm of vermin 
that have crept over the land; . . . they sup in our 
cup, dip in our dish, sit by our fire." " These," he 
said, " are the leeches that have sucked the Common- 
wealth so hard that it is almost hectical." A case still 
cited as precedent was brought in the English courts ; 
it was to dissolve a monopoly for the sale of playing- 
cards, and as reported by Coke is termed " the Case 
of Monopolies." Late decisions to dissolve mergers 
and the like are in accord with the reasons given in 
the report of Coke : a monopoly in restraint is against 
both the common law and numerous legislative acts. 

But provisions for the control of monopolies are 
older than the rise of the English law. The economic 
conditions from which monopolies grew were in the 
ancient world and monopolies have existed from the 
earliest historic times. Zeno, the Prefect of Constan- 
tinople, found conditions not unlike those of our own 
day, and in 483 A. D. issued an edict that if carried 
out would likely have made him the greatest force for 
the control of monopolies of which we have any knowl- 
edge. In an age of attempted monopoly control, the 
message from Zeno cannot fail to interest: 

We command that no one may presume to ex- 
ercise a monopoly of any kind of clothing, or of 
fish, or any other thing serving for food, or for any 
other use, whatever its nature may be : that differ- 
ent kinds of merchandise may not be sold at a less 
price than they have agreed upon among them- 



OLD AND NEW EDUCATION. 51 

selves. Workmen and contractors for buildings, 
and all who practice other professions, and con- 
tractors for baths, are entirely prohibited from 
agreeing together that no one may complete a work 
contracted for by another, or that a person may 
prevent one who has contracted for a work from 
finishing it ; . . . and if any one shall presume to 
practice a monopoly, let his property be forfeited 
and himself be condemned to perpetual exile. 

Nor do the statements above made detract from the 
interest or the importance of the present. Truly great 
work in literature, music, and architecture has been 
characterized by a singular lack of originality. The 
preeminent literary genius of the English race was so 
wanting in this particular that his authorship has been 
called into question. Both language and subject- 
matter of his plays follow other writings which had 
preceded. In addition to the use of the chronicles of 
Holinshed and Hall, and the North Plutarch which 
had just appeared, Shakespeare drew largely from 
legends and traditions current at the time he wrote, 
and even from the dramas of his contemporaries. This 
genius did not '' invent " situations as he did not 
create language. Nor was this adopting peculiar to 
Shakespeare. A modern scholar has found the single 
Eastern tradition of the Merchant of Tyre which was 
used by Shakespeare in at least a dozen languages and 
literatures, and in all of them it exists with but slight 
variations.^ 

1 Smyth, Appolonius of Tyre, Publications of American Philosophi- 
cal Society. 



52 OLD AND NEW EDUCATION. 

In music the facts are not less striking. Wagner 
did not, as is often thought, create his art out of his 
own personality ; he but put the stamp of his genius 
upon much that preceded him, and his service to the 
world was in his ability to unify, coordinate, and re- 
express the work of others. 

In the presence of great architectural triumphs we 
can well understand the dependence of modern archi- 
tecture upon the work of other ages and other peoples. 
We have sometimes felt that architects are too slavishly 
following the tastes and styles of earlier times. 
Greek, Italian, Renaissance, Gothic, Spanish and Colo- 
nial are terms and styles known even to the uninitiated. 
Modern buildings are largely cast in the moulds of 
the builders of the long ago. 

Modern life explains ancient life, and is in reality 
an advance upon the ancient. This inter-relation and 
inter-dependence of past and present may thus become 
a unifying principle in the study of history, for ex- 
ample, and when it is adopted, history is a subject of 
first importance. The practical value of this subject 
has been questioned, but correct notions of what his- 
tory is will promptly remove all question. The past 
calls forward to the present and the present calls back 
to the past in so many ways that history is found to 
be one; and thus it is organically related in all of its 
parts. Many of the so-called problems of the present 
have been met in the past, and important contributions 
made towards their solution. 

Modern developments make us better able to under- 



OLD AND NEW EDUCATION, 53 

« 

stand the life of the past. The commercial era in 
which we are living has contributed the data to make 
antiquity real, both in range of experience and interest. 
The writer found a new flood of light thrown on Greek 
tradition and history when he came to a study of the 
industry and commerce of Greece as a part of the 
great world-movements in production and trade. 
Jason and his Heroes in quest of the Golden Fleece 
indicate, the early commercial spirit of the Greeks and 
their interest in the rich products of the Euxine and 
the lands beyond. Either an actual fleece used as a 
sieve to catch the particles of gold carried in the water, 
or priceless fabrics '' woven in the land of sunshine " 
gave the basis for the tradition. The Legends of Ce- 
crops, his settlement at Athens, and the introduction 
of agriculture, embody and symbolize the Egyptian 
influence in early Greek history ; similarly, the Legend 
of Cadmus and the teaching of the alphabet indicate 
the Phoenician influence. All of us have been mysti- 
fied by the Trojan War stories, but when we see in 
that war an early illustration of the conflict between 
the East and the West, a conflict still going on, the 
war becomes more real. The rape of Helen was an 
incident of the frequent Trojan forays into the Aegean, 
with the plundering of property and the carrying 
away of Greeks as slaves. The Greeks were not safe 
so long as the powerful Trojan city occupied the out- 
posts of Asia and fronted Europe. Troas had a stra- 
tegic and commercial importance much greater in the 
ancient world than has Constantinople in " modern 



54 OLD AND NEW EDUCATION. , 

times. All Greece did not go forth to recover one 
woman who had gone wrong, and to punish her ab- 
ductor; Greece was fighting the battle for national ex- 
istence, and indeed for the existence of a Western civi- 
lization. It was this conception of the Trojan War 
that led a modern writer to say that when understood 
in all of its relations it was the one event of ancient 
history; but it is also an event of interest to us, and 
one which our interests enables us to understand. 

These and other traditions were born in the infancy 
of a race and of a civilization. At such a time an in- 
terest could best be understood by impersonating it. 
Nature too was personal. The city of Athens had a 
tower of the winds in which not only the wind in gen- 
eral, but the diiferent kinds of wind, were represented 
by different figures. In a family well known to the 
writer are young children to whom rain, wind, thun- 
der, sun and moon are persons, and always referred 
to as Mr. Wind, Mr. Rain, Mr. Thunder, etc. Wind 
and rain for these children are made to sing a lullaby, 
while the thunder's roar and the lightning's flash have 
no terrors. It is not to be expected that children will 
continue to impersonate nature's forces, but in early 
years these forces are actual persons. Nor need we 
go on holding blindly to the childhood traditions of 
the Greeks and other peoples. Neither should these 
traditions be dismissed as foolish. The personality in 
them embodied tendencies and influences of a period of 
development. The interests of recent years are en- 
abling us to retain the traditions and discern their real 



OLD AND NEW EDUCATION. 55 

meaning by resolving the personalities into the forces 
which lay back of them and which they typify. 

Our education is always in danger of becoming sub- 
servient to what has been termed '' the tyranny of yes- 
terday." Teachers as a class are likely to be unpro- 
gressive, and this for the reason that they feel that 
they must justify themselves, and to do this they seek 
to perpetuate the education which they received. Con- 
sistency is admirable, but, as pointed out by Emerson, 
under certain circumstances it may become the " hob- 
goblin of little minds." To profit by the experience 
of the old education does not mean that the old is to be 
continued unchanged; rather, experience teaches that 
means should be adapted to ends and, when the 
ends to be attained are different, perforce the means 
by which these are to be reached should be modified. 

We should consider anew the term, A Liberal Edu- 
cation, and have regard for the elements which 
enter into it. What has preceded can but add em- 
phasis to a closing statement — the new in our system 
of education should include much that has been long 
established; and the so-called old finds new interest 
and added value from having regard for present in- 
terest and life. Thus the new education and the old 
education tend to come together. There should be 
much less of difference than is commonly supposed be- 
tween what has been termed '' cultural education " and 
the '' education for practical affairs." Educators are, 
after all, dealing with the same fundamental problems, 
and as it would be lamentable for those promoting ap- 



56 OLD AND NEW EDUCATION. 

plied education to cut themselves from the influence of 
culture, so those fostering cultural education will find 
their task easier and more effective by increased regard 
for the conditions and requirements of the time in 
which we live, and for the practical elements in earlier 
times. 

One training for culture and another for practical 
affairs would inevitably lead to class differences, and 
is un-American. All education should be but part of 
one education, the purpose of which is the training of 
citizens. Cultural education will be the more effective 
with some of the spirit of the practical ; practical edu- 
cation needs the breath of culture. The wine of our 
historic culture can, and should, be handed on in the 
new bottles of economic thought and life, and thus we 
may have the commercializing of the older humanities, 
and the liberalizing of the present industrialism and 
commercialism. A cultural education need not be 
vague and impractical, cut off entirely from present 
life; nor need a practical education be devoid of cul- 
ture. 



IV. 

Samuel Miller's Retrospect. 

At the opening of the nineteenth century there ap- 
peared in this country and in England successive edi- 
tions of a work entitled, ''A Brief Retrospect of the 
Eighteenth Century." The author was the celebrated 
theologian Samuel Miller, then a pastor in New York 
City, and later for many years a professor in Prince- 
ton Theological Seminary. Miller is well remem- 
bered as a controversialist, and is still an authority on 
many phases of church polity, but his Retrospect, in- 
teresting and valuable as it is, seems to have been 
quite forgotten. 

The Retrospect was a labor of love growing from a 
single discourse, first to a projected volume, and then 
to two volumes. The treatment indicates a wide range 
of interest, unusual insight, and pleasing expression. 
As one reads the Retrospect he deliberates which to 
admire more in this man thirty-four years of age who 
was the product of an earlier educational regime — the 
fortitude with which he undertook his task, or the skill 
with which he accomplished it. 

Judged by present standards of literary style, and 
accuracy and breadth of scholarship, Samuel Miller's 
Retrospect is a remarkable work. On its appearance 

57 



58 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

its reviewers called it a " useful and judicious com- 
pilation," and it was said that it won the applause of 
two hemispheres. Certain it is that the New York 
edition of 1803 was followed by a second New York 
edition in 1 805, and by a London edition in the same 
year. 

THE AUTHOR. 

Samuel Miller was the son of a clergyman, by whom 
his early education was directed. He was admitted to 
the senior class of the University of Pennsylvania, and 
graduated with first honors in 1789. After a course 
in divinity he was called to a pastorate in the colle- 
giate churches of New York City, and served in that 
capacity for some ten years. In 1812 Dr. Miller 
preached the installation sermon for the first professor 
appointed in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and 
the next year he was called to the second professorship 
in this Seminary, a position which he held until his 
death in 1850. 

A striking characteristic of Samuel Miller, evi- 
denced alike in his writings and his personal relations, 
was his courtesy and kindliness. He was described as 
'' bland and attractive," possessing " graceful facility," 
and withal as being gentle and genial. For more 
than a generation he was to the students of Princeton 
and the church of America the beau ideal of a Chris- 
tian gentleman, and his influence abides through his 
treatise on " Clerical Manners and Habits." 

Miller's published works make a long list. To biog- 
raphy he added books on doctrinal subjects and many 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 59 

essays on the conflicting religious opinions that stirred 
the first third of the nineteenth century. Nor was he 
wanting in breadth of interest ; his sermons on special 
occasions are numerous and much to his credit. 

ELECTRICITY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

From the pages of the Retrospect we gather that 
the present '' age of electricity " is debtor more largely 
than we usually think to the years back of 1801. It is 
true that two hundred years ago electricity hardly had 
a place in the so-called system of natural philosophy. 
Miller points out that Dr. Halley began the eighteenth 
century by publishing a chart showing the variation 
of the magnetic needle; this was later re-issued, 
Churchman publishing the third edition of such a chart 
in 1800. In 1729 Stephen Gray distinguished funda- 
mentally between electric conductivity and non-con- 
ductivity. Watson later established that friction only 
collected, and did not produce electricity, and Dr. 
Knight discovered an artificial means of making mag- 
nets in 1744, thus rendering the compass more con- 
venient and useful. In 1754 experiments- at Leyden 
made it possible to collect electrical fluid in a jar and 
discharge it by means of a conductor. Soon after this 
the Leyden jar was improved by bringing several jars 
together, thus increasing the force. 

Before the middle of the century experiments had 
been completed showing the effects of electricity on 
animal and vegetable bodies, and, says our author, '' it 
is already established as an important article of w^ifma 



60 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

medical Franklin " snatched the lightning from the 
clouds" in 1752. Mesmer put forth his famous sys- 
tem of animal magnetism about 1766, and in 1774 
Hehl enunciated the idea of sympathy between the 
human body and the magnet. In the latter part of 
the eighteenth century Volta invented the condenser 
for electrical fluid, and in 1791 Galvani, a physician of 
Bologna, showed by experiment the connection be- 
tween what formerly had been called '' animal elec- 
tricity " and electricity. It was pointed out that the 
former was too narrow, and for it there was adopted 
the word galvanism. In 1800 Volta perfected his de- 
vice with plates of silver, zinc, etc., for condensing, 
retaining and communicating galvanic influence, and 
thus that indispensable agent in the application of 
electricity, the battery, came into use. 

Our author adds to the foregoing account something 
of the work of Davy, Cruikshank and others in im- 
proving the discoveries and inventions enumerated. 

It is evident that the century reviewed by Samuel 
Miller was notable for discoveries in electricity. The 
very terminology of the science is a tribute to the 
greatness of the scientists of that age, but we have felt 
that theirs were achievements in the realm of pure 
science while the succeeding hundred years were to 
see the same knowledge brought to the use of men. 
Even so eminent an authority as Elihu Thompson 
states that there is no evidence of the application of 
electricity to the useful arts in the eighteenth century. 

But in its accounts of the practical application of 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 61 

electricity the Retrospect now under review tries our 
belief. The electrical telegraph was treated as seri- 
ously as though it were a complete invention. Some- 
thing like this, we are told, had long been used for 
signals in civil and military emergencies, but as the 
statement goes, it was not reduced to a regular system 
until the beginning of the eighteenth century. We are 
further informed that after the French Revolution, 
electricity was generally applied to useful purposes, 
Says our chronicler, in 1799 Jonathan Grout of Massa- 
chusetts invented a telegraph essentially different from 
any then in use in Great Britain. This was put in 
operation between Boston and Martha's Vineyard, and 
questions were asked and answers received within the 
space of ten minutes. The use of electricity as an 
agent in war, in commerce, for the prevention of dis- 
aster, and to serve the purposes of statecraft are noted, 
and Miller adds, " How great importance for the pres- 
ent, and how much more so for the future !" 

THE ATMOSPHERE. 

Atmosphere as a scientific study had been first culti- 
vated in the seventeenth century. The experiments of 
Torricelli in that period demonstrated that air is a 
gravitating substance, but it remained for the eigh- 
teenth century to improve both the barometer and the 
air-pump. Anderson, Franklin and Count Rumford 
are credited with inventions and improvements in the 
construction of houses, chimneys and stoves which re- 
sulted in the saving of fuel and adding to the com- 



62 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

forts of living. Absorption of water into the air 
seems not to have been well understood until the 
middle of the eighteenth century; in 1765 Hugh 
Hamilton read an essay before the Royal Society in 
which he set forth the general theory of evaporation. 
Priestley's famous discovery of oxygen occurred in 
1774, thus making clear the nature of combustion, 
breathing, etc. 

In 1782 balloons from heated air were used, though 
in the next year hydrogen gas was substituted for hot 
air. Many of these balloons had been used before 
Samuel Miller wrote, though, as he said, the only prac- 
tical purposes of them were for meteorogical observa- 
tions and for inspecting camps, fortifications, etc., of 
an enemy in time of war. In aerial navigation we 
have made great advance upon Samuel Miller's time, 
although we still speak in his language of hope : "Who 
can tell but that another century may give rise to such 
improvements that migrating in the air may be as safe, 
as easy, and as subservient to practical purposes as 
migrating on the ocean?" 

PROGRESS OF MEDICINE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

Miller's Retrospect gave much space to medicine; 
its relative position to other branches of science was 
pointed out, and its membership at that time was found 
to " constitute a large class of the learned world." 
The great progress in medical science in the eighteenth 
century depended upon improvements in chemistry 
and natural history, and better communication which 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 63 

made possible the handing on of results of experi- 
ments and the exchange of opinions. It was in the 
later seventeenth century that there was discovered the 
device of making " preparations " for dissecting by 
filling the vascular system with a bright-colored wax. 
The lymphatics and thoracic duct were earlier known, 
but the human absorbent system, or the office of the 
lymphatics, was explained first in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. Two things characterize the study of anatomy 
in the eighteenth century : the use of preparations and 
attention to comparative anatomy. 

In physiology, the eighteenth century is said to 
have inherited '' a chaos of the wildest and most dis- 
cordant principles." Mechanics had come into medi- 
cine in the seventeenth century in the teachings of a 
mathematical school, i. e., that muscles are cords and 
bones levers, and that running, walking, swimming, 
etc., are mechanical, a theory which indicates the 
strong hold of mathematics in the period following the 
brilliant work of Sir Isaac Newton. Boerhaave and 
Haller gathered the preceding notions and system- 
atized them, the latter earning the title of " father of 
the science of physiology." Haller in the eighteenth 
century also discovered the irritability of the muscular 
fiber and the contractile power of muscles, a property 
by which muscles become shorter and recede from 
stimuli. This quality was regarded as an inherent, 
independent, and permanent property of living fiber. 
Whytt later put forth that this irritability was due to 
a nervous phenomenon, though on this theory Miller 
did not look with special favor. 



64 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

In the knowledge of such physiological processes as 
respiration, digestion, procreation, the eighteenth cen- 
tury saw much advance. Earlier the chief purpose of 
respiration had been thought to be the production of 
the voice. But, says Miller, much of the true function 
of the lungs came to be known in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. " The mystery of respiration " was shown by 
the then modern science of chemistry, for with the 
discovery of oxygen and the analysis of the atmos- 
phere it was possible to explain respiration. Dr. 
Priestley contributed to this explanation by showing 
that there is a quantity of carbonic acid gas in the air, 
after it has been in the lungs, that had not been there 
before. It was not until Priestley had discovered that 
the venous blood acquires a scarlet color when brought 
into contact with oxygen gas, and that arterial blood 
becomes purple when brought into contact with hy- 
drogen gas ; that oxygen gas instantly gives venous 
blood the color of arterial, and that hydrogen, on the 
contrary, gives arterial blood the color of venous — it 
was not till this discovery, says our author, that scien- 
tists even began an explanation of the phenomena of 
respiration. Dr. Priestley enclosed blood in a bladder, 
and by the passage of oxygen through the moistened 
coats showed the effect of oxygen and the way it 
passes into the blood-vessels in the lungs. 

The treatment of procreation shows the relations of 
science and religion at that time. The doctrine of 
"equivocal generation" of the seventeenth century 
was still adhered to by those who would make possible 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 65 

a belief in the existence of man without a creating 
God. Miller set forth the present generally accepted 
theories of inception of life, and adds, " Every new 
ray of light on this question is a new demonstration 
of the absurdity of atheism and of the existence of a 
First Great Cause." 

In the theory and practice of medicine in tKe eigh- 
teenth century the progress was greater than in physi- 
ology. Our author sketches the systems of medicine 
from the revival of learning, when was quite generally 
accepted the wonder-working practice known as Ga- 
lenic ; he follows with an account of the conflict of the 
followers of the preceding with the chemical physi- 
cians of the seventeenth century, and traces the rise of 
'' humoral pathology." Boerhaave, following the lead 
of the mathematical school, attempted to explain the 
phenomena of health and sickness on mathematical 
principles. Stahl came next with the theory that there 
is a rational soul that presides over all and governs all, 
thus controlling the economy of sickness and health. 
Present dangerous medical heresies, such as Faith 
Cure and Christian Science, have their counterpart — 
perhaps their suggestion — in the eighteenth-century 
system of Stahl. 

Two other theories of medicine described at some 
length deserve mention : they are those of Erasmus 
Darwin and Sir John Pringle. Darwin taught that 
every part of the animal is a living principle, has sen- 
sorial power, and that disease arises as a proximate 
cause from what was termed the exuberance, deficiency 



66 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

or retrograde action of this sensorium. Pringle in a 
theory of fevers set forth that miasmata and conta- 
gion act as a ferment on animal fluids. Important 
as this was in approaching present medical theory 
based on the new science of bacteriology, it was dis- 
missed by Miller as vague and improbable. 

The chief medical triumphs of the eighteenth cen- 
tury were over contagious diseases, the reduction of 
their frequency and their malignity. Leprosy was 
almost banished from the civilized world; but the two 
diseases that gave most concern were fevers and small- 
pox. Theories of fevers were quite as numerous as 
were systems of medicine, and they found their most 
modern expression in that of Sir John Pringle noted 
above. The supreme achievement in dealing with 
fevers was in the treatment known as cool regime set 
forth by Currie of Liverpool. By this there were 
added to cool air and cool drinks the external applica- 
tion of cold water — again a close approach to present 
approved modern practice. 

Clearly the greatest medical success of the eigh- 
teenth century was the control over smallpox, a control 
fairly complete in that era. The most cursory exam- 
ination of the newspapers, memoirs, and books of travel 
of the time indicate how frequent and deadly small- 
pox had been ; and taking into consideration its prac- 
tical disappearance, one can get some notion of how 
great our debt is to those who were instrumental in 
bringing this about. It is said that inoculation as a 
preventive had been introduced into Constantinople 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 67 

towards the end of the seventeenth century, it having 
earlier been practiced by the Circassians in rearing 
their children for the Turkish seraglio. Lady Mon- 
tague introduced the practice into England by having 
her children inoculated. By 1721 inoculation began 
to be generally adopted, coming into vogue after it 
was performed on the children of the royal family. 
The opposition, we are told, was with '' zeal and in- 
temperance," but by the middle of the century inocu- 
lation was considered as established. 

In 1 72 1 Dr. Boylston of Boston inoculated his chil- 
dren and servants, though to this there was violent 
opposition on the part of the medical profession, the 
clergy, and the public. Dr. Boylston's experiments 
w.ere regarded as a species of murder, and for a time 
his life was endangered, so bitter was the feeling 
against him. The famous Dr. William Douglass was 
of the opposition party; a newspaper war was carried 
on, in which the New England Courant took sides with 
Douglass and his following. We are told that Ben- 
jamin Franklin " employed his opening talents in 
favor of the same deluded party." But inoculation 
increased, and from New England it was adopted in 
New York and Philadelphia, and by 1783 had reached 
to Charleston, South Carolina. By that time, Miller 
says, it was generally accepted by the intelligent and 
better classes. 

Much of the earlier opposition was removed by Dr. 
Jenner's discovery in 1798 by which, with the use of 
vaccine of cowpox, there was brought on a milder and 



68 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

less dangerous form of the disease. The introduction 
of cowpox is termed the " most memorable improve- 
ment ever made in the practice of physic." The 
milder form of the disease gave such effectual security 
that Miller could say that by the beginning of the 
nineteenth century the scourge of smallpox no longer 
excited the terror of communities. 

GEOGRAPHY AND NAVIGATION. 

In geographical discovery the eighteenth century 
almost eclipses the much famed sixteenth. At its be- 
ginning, one-half of the earth was unknown or so 
little known as to be of slight value; such territories 
as Russia and Turkey, for example, had been closed 
to Western Europe. In the growth of geographical 
knowledge in the eighteenth century, Russia and Eng- 
land contributed much the greater part. In making a 
new Russia known to the world, Peter the Gneat gave 
acquaintance with a vast empire in two continents. 
George I in England revived interest in geography in 
that country. Two purposes animated Englishmen : 
to reach the Orient by a North Sea passage, and to 
explore lands in the South Sea. At the opening of 
the period the continent south of the equator was terra 
Australis incognita. The most distinguished of the 
English voyagers was Captain James Cook, of whom 
our reviewer says : " Science and humanity were more 
indebted to him than to any other in the same line 
since Columbus." 

Out of geographical discovery the eighteenth cen- 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 69 

tury saw additions to science: new light on the the- 
ories of the tides and winds; better understanding of 
magnetic variations; advanced knowledge of mineral- 
ogy, botany, and zoology; " collections of curiosities " 
brought together as museums; better intercourse 
among peoples with the extension of trade; the intro- 
duction of new articles of consumption; and finally, 
an advanced knowledge of antiquities. '' The enlarge- 
ment of geographical knowledge during the late cen- 
tury has led to an increase of the comforts and elegan- 
cies of life in almost every part of the civilized world. 
By this means the productions of every climate have 
become known and enjoyed in every other; the inven- 
tions and improvements of one country have been com- 
municated to the most distant regions; and the com- 
forts of living, and the refinement of luxury, have 
gained a degree of prevalence among mankind greatly 
beyond all former precedent. Never, assuredly, in 
any former age, were so many of the natural produc- 
tions and the manufactures of different countries en- 
joyed by so large a portion of the human race as at 
the close of the eighteenth century." 

In furthering knowledge of the world, improved 
navigation played an important part. The eighteenth 
century saw ships built for sailing power as well as 
for carrying capacity; the mariner's compass was im- 
proved by the invention of artificial magnets ; and the 
quadrant was invented and largely introduced for tak- 
ing bearings at sea. 

Horrors of the sea in earlier ages were almost re- 



70 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

moved by improved diet and medical science. Scurvy 
on shipboard was reduced by the use of citric acid, what 
was termed a " late method " of crystallizing it having 
been discovered. Captain Cook is credited with being 
the first to reduce the principles of nautical medicine 
to practice. Ventilators are said to have been intro- 
duced into ships for the first time in the eighteenth 
century, resulting at once in improved health of sea- 
men and better preservation of cargoes and ships' 
timbers. 

INDUSTRY AND ART. 

A recent writer on the nineteenth century character- 
izes it as a period of extraordinary progress in man's 
gaining control over the forces of nature, and declares 
that in transportation, in the handicrafts, and in the 
general subjection of the elements to the service of 
men, more progress was made in the last one hundred 
years than in all the preceding eras of recorded time. 
But Samuel Miller might, with equal show of truth, 
have said the same of the century which he reviewed. 
The eighteenth century saw much of the application 
of science to every- day life. The great industrial 
revolution which has wrought such marvelous changes 
in our economy is based on improvements of the eigh- 
teenth century, and began its work before that cen- 
tury's close. The seventeen-hundreds saw the cutting 
of nails substituted for hammering them on an anvil; 
it saw also the movable spinning frame and the 
power-loom. To make these effective, formidable 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 71 

difficulties in the use of steam for power were over- 
come. 

In the eighteenth century improvements in printing 
were marked. Better methods of making type were 
devised, facsimile reproduction as an art was invented 
and stereotyped plates were first successfully cast. 

Agriculture saw notable progress in the eighteenth 
century. Such topics as the physiology of vegetables 
and the chemistry of soils were seriously considered. 
Selecting, rearing and caring for stock became a 
science; the naturalization of plants attracted atten- 
tion ; the influence of light on vegetation was investi- 
gated, and new fertilizers, as gypsum, manure, etc., 
were introduced. As early as 1760 '' horse hoeing and 
drill husbandry " were adopted, thus '' making a grand 
era in agriculture." 

In fine arts, as in those termed mechanical, the eigh- 
teenth century was notable. In portrait-painting we 
are to reckon with such names as Joshua Reynolds, 
Benjamin West, John C. Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and 
John Trumbull. The great original in comic paint- 
ing, the man who is said to have composed comedies 
no less than Moliere, William Hogarth, did his work 
in the same hundred years as did the allegorical 
painter Kauifman. To make the record at all com- 
plete there should be added an account of the work of 
Reeves, who in 1778 gave an improved method of pre- 
paring water-colors; and later the ingenious, though 
simple, device for etching on glass by means of wax 
and acid. 



72 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

LITERARY PRODUCTIONS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

Literary and scientific associations were relatively 
more important factors in the one hundred years pre- 
ceding 1801 than they were in those following. In 
the earlier century the American Philosophical Society 
had been presided over by Benjamin Franklin, David 
Rittenhouse and Thomas Jefferson. This society was 
followed in its organization by the American Academy 
of Arts and Sciences in Boston, and later a similar 
society in New Haven. The Massachusetts Historical 
Society had been organized and begun its work, and 
agricultural societies were established in every part of 
the Union. These various societies, with the publica- 
tion of their memoirs and transactions rendered much 
service in the cause of learning. 

The eighteenth century was a pioneer in the publica- 
tion of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and similar works 
of reference. An early important encyclopedia was 
by Ephraim Chambers, in two volumes, published in 
1728. A second edition of the ''Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica " was completed in ten volumes in 1783, and en- 
larged to eighteen volumes in 1797. Thomas Dobson, 
a Philadelphia printer brought out an American edi- 
tion, based on the one of 1797. This was with the 
now familiar, " valuable additions and corrections," 
and it was said to contain " much important informa- 
tion respecting the United States, not in the British 
edition." In the eighteenth century it first became 
common to publish dictionaries of special industries 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 73 

and trades, such for example as gardening, agricul- 
ture, commerce, law, mathematics, chemistry, mineral- 
ogy, botany, painting, and music. 

As a classicist, Miller lamented the decadence of the 
classics, which decadence had resulted, as he believed, 
in a scholarship less profound and less exact; but he 
pays a tribute to the '' nations lately become literary," 
giving much credit to Germany, France and England. 
The period was one rich in translations from the 
Greek and Latin literatures, and it was in this century 
that the literary merit of great translations was first 
generally recognized. 

The Retrospect notes the world's debt to Addison 
for his ease and polish of literary style, to Swift for 
his purity and precision, and to Pope for his mechan- 
ical accuracy. It is proud of the ponderous scholarship 
of Johnson ; of the work of Richardson, Fielding, 
Smollett, Goldsmith, and Sterne in imaginative litera- 
ture; of Burke and Bishop Watson in oration and 
essay. It gives high place to Lindley Murray's Eng- 
lish Grammar, the service of which, we are told, was 
so great as to need no eulogium. Nor does it over- 
look the work of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon in 
history. 

Periodical publications in the nature of reviews and 
monthlies multiplied, and of them Miller could say : 
" They form the principal means of diffusing knowl- 
edge through every part of the civilized world ; they 
convey, in an abridged and agreeable manner, the 
contents of many ponderous volumes, and frequently 



74 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

supersede the appearance of such volumes, and they 
record every species of information, from the most 
sublime investigations of science to the "most trifling 
concerns of amusement. When the future historian 
shall desire to obtain a correct view of the literature 
and manners of the period, he will probably resort to 
periodical publications of the day." 

It was in the periodicals of the eighteenth century 
that criticism first " began to brandish its formidable 
weapon." This era is contrasted with earlier ones in 
which the unsuccessful author reckoned only with the 
publisher or printer, and fell into oblivion. Now he 
found the review arraigning him at a public tribunal 
as an offender. 

The ** Gentlemen's Magazine " was established in 
I 73 1, Franklin's " General Magazine" in I 741, "The 
Monthly Review " in i 756, and the " London Review " 
in 1775. These gave notices of publications, printed 
abstracts and criticisms of new books, cited from for- 
eign works, etc. Miller says of their influence, that 
they excited attention, diffused knowledge with a taste 
for reading, and cultivated a spirit of criticism. By 
them learning was said to have such a popular cast as 
to descend from the shelves of the polite scholar and 
to emerge from the closet of the philosopher. Closely 
related to the foregoing were essays in the form of 
periodicals, such as " The Tatler," '' The Spectator," 
"The Guardian," "The Rambler," "The Idler," 
" The Adventurer," " The World," " The Connois- 
seur," "The Mirror," "The Looker-On," "The 
Lounger," and " The Observer," 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 75 

But Miller's arraignment of the periodical writing 
of the eighteenth century gives a fair criticism of the 
present era — "it produces ostentatious and superficial 
scholars, it is unfavorable to sound erudition, discour- 
ages reading and systematic thinking, and leads men 
to try for a short and easy path to real scholarship." 

Miller called the eighteenth century '' peculiarly and 
emphatically " the age of the novel, and he reviewed 
the writings of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and 
others, much as they would be reviewed by modern 
critics. Of the ''Vicar of Wakefield" he said: "It 
will be read with pleasure as one of the finest, most 
happily imagined, and most moral pictures ever 
drawn." In this connection he also commented on the 
work of Charles Brockden Brown as that of the first 
American who had presented his fellow-countrymen 
with what was termed " a respectable piece of fictitious 
history." 

Of the evil of reading novels Miller had no doubt. 
He spoke of the " thirst " for novels as ardent and ex- 
tensive, even terming it a " morbid appetite." He did 
not question that novels might be productive of utility 
when properly conceived and constructed, saying that 
they might be written to promote knowledge and vir- 
tue, but he declared there were few of that class. 
They were thought to be generally positively bad or 
frivolous; of the best of them it could be said, they 
were " innocent and amusing compositions." If pos- 
sible. Miller would have wholly prevented the reading 
of novels ; at the best, he would have had the reading 
of a few, and these selected with vigilance. 



76 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

EDUCATION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS. 

No more interesting controversy was inherited from 
the eighteenth century than that over the " omnipo- 
tence of education," and the '' perfectibility of man." 
In brief, those who held to these doctrines believed 
that suffering was to be eliminated through the spread 
of knowledge. This doctrine had an early statement 
by Helvetius and Condorcet in France, and was later 
taken up by Godwin in England. It was Godwin's 
contention that vice was due to the imperfection of 
human institutions. This was in the line of the earlier 
feeling that differences in men were due to differences 
in moral and intellectual education. 

Miller argued at length against human perfectibility 
through education. He said, first, it is contrary to the 
nature and condition of man : man does not inherit 
moral power. Each man must restrain his own appe- 
tites and subdue his own passions. In the second 
place, this doctrine is contrary to all experience; and 
in the third, it is in opposition to the principles of in- 
crease in population and the limit of the means of sub- 
sistence. Under this head Miller follows the lines laid 
down by Malthus in the " Essay on Population," which 
he termed a strong anonymous work, which for '' force 
of reasoning, candor and urbanit}^ of discussion has 
rarely, if ever, been exceeded." Finally, as a Calvin- 
istic theologian, Miller discredited this doctrine as op- 
posing the Scripture, according to which, as he be- 
lieved, men are fallen and depraved beings. He was 



SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 77 

likely right in feeling that this theory had enjoyed so 
large currency because it was flattering to men ; it 
seemed to place them in a position of power and inde- 
pendence. 

In no particular does our age stand in more striking 
contrast with this Retrospect of the eighteenth century 
than in its notion of the education of women. Said 
Miller, it was neither practical nor desirable that 
women should have the same education as men, and for 
the following reasons : ( i ) Women are destined to dif- 
ferent employments and pursuits ; they are smaller, 
weaker and more timid than men. (2) To make edu- 
cation of women the same as that of men would be 
productive of the most immoral consequences. Samuel 
Miller shrunk with horror at the thought of co-educa- 
tion, '' the promiscuous mingling of the sexes," and 
affirmed that it would " convert society into a hoard 
of seducers and prostitutes." (3) In conclusion, as 
usual, he made a point of his theological argument. 
Equal education was thought not only impracticable; 
it was felt to be opposed to the spirit of Christianity. 
" The God of nature," he said, " has raised everlast- 
ingly barriers against such wild and mischievous 
claims." 

CONCLUSION. 

Samuel Miller commented on the general character 
of the eighteenth century, but nothing he said is half 
so satisfactory evidence of this fact as his own book. 
The past hundred years have been characterized by 



78 SAMUEL MILLER'S RETROSPECT. 

such specialization that it is beyond one man to carry 
through with any degree of success so comprehensive 
a work as Miller's Retrospect. Reviews of the nine- 
teenth century of equal scope were the result of co- 
operative effort of a dozen specialists. 

One feels like expressing anew the sentiment of the 
London "Aikin Annual Review " at the time the Ret- 
rospect appeared: " It were ungrateful to require per- 
fection where so much has been performed," and " it 
is honorable that literary curiosity should have been so 
alert and comprehensive." Accounts of the nineteenth 
centur}^ should not forget the notable achievements of 
the eighteenth, nor should the present ignore a work 
that is in many respects a revelation. 



V. 

Unconscious Education. 

In their numerous conventions teachers give them- 
selves largely to the discussions of curricula — either 
the content and arrangement of the subject-matter of 
instruction, or to the methods of presentation. Boards 
of Education at the same time are concerned almost 
wholly with the questions of material equipment; they 
may be parsimonious in the payment of teachers, but 
in late years they have been almost prodigal in the ex- 
penditures for buildings and apparatus. But in all 
this we need to remind ourselves that buildings and the 
subject-matter of instruction are of themselves dead 
things, that methods of teaching are mechanical de- 
vices, and that both are wholly dependent on the teach- 
ers who use them. Unless there is the living, inspirit- 
ing personality of the teacher, both curricula and 
methods, however good in themselves, may count for 
naught. One may go further and say that inadequate 
physical equipment, bad curricula and faulty peda- 
gogical methods may in the hands of a teacher of per- 
sonal force and character accomplish desirable ends. 
The silent unconscious power which the teacher exerts, 
uncohscious alike to the teacher and the taught, is 

79 



80 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 

often more determining in its influence and more last- 
ing in its effect than is the formal and purposeful 
teaching of the schools. A truth before which teach- 
ers should stand with bared heads is that they teach 
more b}^ what they are than by what they mean to 
teach, or how they teach it. One wise in his genera- 
tion said, " You need not tell me what you study; tell 
me who are your teachers." 

One with rare insight in education thus expresses 
the truth above stated : 

As the heart makes the home, the teacher makes 
the school. What we need above all things, wher- 
ever the young are gathered for education, is not a 
showy building, or costly apparatus, or improved 
methods or text-books, but a living, loving, illu- 
mined human being who has deep faith in the 
power of education and a real desire to bring it to 
bear upon those who are intrusted to him. This 
applies to the primary school with as much force 
as to the high school and university. Those who 
think — and they are, I imagine, the vast major- 
ity — that any one who can read and write, who 
knows something of arithmetic, geography, and his- 
tory, is competent to educate young children, have 
not even the most elementary notions of what edu- 
cation is.^ 

Arnold, from whom personal power radiated and 
who is an abiding influence in the English schools, 

^ Spaulding, Means and Ends of Education, 135. • 



UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 81 

once wrote his requirements for a teacher: '' I want a 
man who is a Christian and a gentleman, and one who 
has common sense and understands boys. I prefer 
activity of the mind and interest to high scholarship, 
for one may be acquired far more easily than the 
other." President Hyde's observations are that no 
teacher's success can be accounted for by high scholar- 
ship alone, and he said that he had never known a 
failure that could not be accounted for in other ways 
than by lack of scholarship. Teachers should not be 
deceived with the thought that they are to teach a 
given subject or -to practice a given method. Instead 
they are to teach boys and girls, and as Professor West 
observes, they may well start with an acceptance of 
Pope's saying, 

The proper study of mankind is man. 

A teacher should try to live up to the standard of 
being a " human being, incidentally a scholar, and 
accidentally in a given calling." The supreme quality 
of the true teacher is the human. With one who has 
a large measure of humanity, scholarship may well be 
incidental, and the calling accidental. The teacher 
should have a deep, broad and full human sympathy. 
No man should go into teaching who cannot accept as 
the fundamental tenet of his creed, " I believe in boys 
and girls, the men and women of the great to-morrow." 

Personality is presence, attractiveness, that magnet 
which draws and holds. One fundamental distinction 
is, that personality is not eccentricity or peculiarity. 



82 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 

Personality includes both body and soul; both heart 
and mind ; it is that indefinable something which binds 
individual to individual. 

One fundamental quality of a teacher's personal 
force is intellectual enthusiasm. If he is to succeed in 
being the inspirer of others he must himself be a 
learner, for an active mind is necessary to stimulate 
other minds to activity. Some one asked Thomas 
Arnold late in life how it was that he who had spent 
so many years in teaching found it necessary still to 
employ several hours each day in studying. The 
Prince of Schoolmasters answered, " I study that my 
pupils may drink at a living fountain, not at a stag- 
nant pool." Edward Suess, the great Austrian geolo- 
gist, said in his farewell lecture: '' When I became a 
teacher, I did not cease to be a student; and now that 
I cease to be a teacher, I shall not cease to be a stu- 
dent." 

Professor Meiklejohn, in a late paper in answer to 
the question. Is Mental Training a Myth, reaches the 
conclusion : 

*' I am persuaded, however, that far more important 
than the subject (of study) is the mind of the teacher. 
The one sure way to learn good thinking is to come 
into contact with a mind which thinks well and to feel 
its influence. In the game of thinking, as in games of 
the athletic field, one learns best by practice in fast 
company. And it is not, in my opinion, necessary, as 
is sometimes suggested, that the method of the teacher 
should find expression in conscious ideals which may 



UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 83 

be communicated as guiding principles to the stu- 
dent." ^ 

Enthusiasm is as a moving force in education, and 
the most pitiable creature one can well imagine is a 
teacher with his enthusiasm gone. His life is then 
burned out. Those who have been much about schools 
and colleges are familiar with the type represented by 
an Oxford professor of whom the statement was made 
that he was a cupboard full of learning, but that the 
door to this learning was locked. The unused power 
of a teacher may well be likened to a shell found on 
the field years after the battle of Waterloo, with the 
explosive power still enclosed, but from which the 
fuse had died out. The fuse of enthusiasm is a neces- 
sity if the teacher's power is to be exerted. It is the 
enthusiasm of youth that often gives young teachers 
marked power. But this enthusiasm need not be lim- 
ited by years. President Eliot tells us that there are 
two kinds of persons who make good teachers, those 
who are young in years, and those who never grow old. 
Dr. Arnold feared for loss of influence at Rugby if he 
were not able to run upstairs. 

The most important of the qualities operating in 
unconscious education is the basal character of the 
teacher. In last analysis this is the life back of the 
teaching. And here is a case where '' what one is 
goes before what one has or does." There must be a 
genuineness of the teacher's interest; — his deep concern 

1 Educational Review, February, 1909. 



84 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 

for those with whom he labors. Out of this interest 
he is moulding those whom he teaches. It was this 
thought that Emerson expressed when he said, " I 
cannot hear what you say, because behind what you 
say thunders so loud what you are." Of Emerson 
himself a lady once remarked that although she did 
not understand what he said, she' loved to hear him 
lecture, because he looked like so good a man. 
As Bishop Spaulding well says : 

Education is essentially a vital process. It is 
a furthering of life ; and as the living proceed from 
the living, they can rise in the wider world of 
ideas and conduct only by help of the living; and 
as in the physical realm every animal begets after 
its own likeness, so also in the spiritual the teacher 
can give but what he has. If the well-spring of 
truth and love has run dry within himself, he 
teaches in vain. His words will no more bring 
forth life than desert winds will clothe arid sands 
with verdure. 

Character is not a quality to be assumed. Young 
people are quick to discriminate between the profes- 
sions and the practices of those with whom they asso- 
ciate. 

The relation of the true teacher to his pupils may 
well become that of the risen Lord to his apostles on the 
way from Emmaus ; they felt their hearts burn within 
them as he talked with them on the way. The Christ 



UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 85 

taught as one having authority because he spoke with 
his whole nature. The shadow of the life of the 
teacher falls on those who come under his influence 
either to heal or to hurt; the character in him may, 
like the shadow of the apostles of old, fall upon those 
who come within his path to their healing. 

From the character of the teacher comes the kind 
of teaching that lasts. "As the student emerges from 
the school," writes Dr. E. J. Goodwin, '* and takes up 
the duties of life, he more and more loses his hold 
upon the facts of geography, history, language, math- 
ematics, and science which have been taught him with 
so much solicitude ; but the intellectual training which 
he gets from study, and the ideals of character and 
conduct, the outlook upon life — its duties and oppor- 
tunities — which he gets from the teacher, are perma- 
nent acquisitions which may contribute more toward 
his ultimate success and serviceableness than any 
knowledge which he has obtained from his school- 
books." 

Recent striking arraignments of our systems of edu- 
cation are to the effect that they develop persons of 
mere intellect and do not properly train the emotions 
and sensibilities. Education, the statement goes, pro- 
duces '' intellectual degenerates." Of late there has 
been much said on moral education, but the personality 
of the teacher is at the root of all moral training. The 
teacher's ideals, sincerity, poise, self-control, courtesy, 
voice, manner of dress and attitude toward life are in 
a recent syllabus well termed the most potent forces 



86 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 

for the training of those in the schools. This again 
has been well expressed by Bishop Spaulding : 

Life produces life, life develops life; and if 
the teacher have within himself a living sense of 
the all-importance of conduct, if he thoroughly 
realize that what we call knowledge is a small part 
of man's life, his influence will nourish the feelings 
by which character is evolved. The germ of a 
moral idea is always an emotion, and that which 
impels to right action is the emotion rather than the 
idea. The teachings of the heart remain forever, 
and they are the most important ; for what we love, 
genuinely believe in and desire, decides what we 
are and may become. Hence the true educator, 
even in giving technical instruction, strives not 
merely to make a workman, but to make also a 
man.^ 

The teacher is a '' channel marker " for life. Mark 
Twain, in telling of his experiences as a young pilot 
on the Mississippi River, said that on the river in those 
days were three ** incomparables " as pilots, and that 
one of them, Ben Thornburgh by name, made so fine 
a reputation for escaping the reefs and bars that he 
was the standard for safety, and men would declare 
*'As safe as Ben Thornburgh." Of him Mark Twain 
writes : '' Nobody needed to search for the best water 
after Ben Thornburgh. If he could not find it no one 

1 Means and Ends of Education, 148. 



UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 87 

could. I felt that way about him, and so more than 
once I waited for him to find the way, then dropped 
into his steamer's wake and ran over the wrecks of his 
buoys on half steam until the leadsman's welcome cry 
of ' Mark Twain ' informed me that I was over the 
bar all right and could draw a full breath again." 

To look at a worthy example in the teacher begets 
unconsciously its like in the child. An incident is re- 
corded of the presentation of a beautiful picture to 
a somewhat irresponsible undergraduate at Oxford. 
This picture was hung in the young man's room in a 
prominent place, amidst a medley of cheap cuts and 
objectionable prints. One by one the gaudy favorites 
disappeared, and in time the beautiful picture was 
surrounded by others in harmony with its character. 
In explanation the young man said : " You see, I 
couldn't leave them up with that. The contrast was 
too dreadful. I didn't see it at first, but I suppose 
that looking at the picture opened my eyes till I could 
see it, and then, I tell you, these cheap prints came 
down in a hurry ! And it was the same way in putting 
up new pictures. That one set the standard, and I 
knew I couldn't have, and didn't want, anything that 
wasn't in harmony with it." 

The next of the elements in this unconscious educa- 
tion is a genuine sympathy for those taught and a 
capacity to get their point of view. Such a sympathy 
is born of affection ; of it Emerson says in his Plato : 
" If there is love between us, our intercourse will be 
profitable; if not, your time is lost and you will only 



88 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 

annoy me ... all my good is magnetic, and I edu - 
cate not by lessons, but by going about my business." 
Because of their lack of sympathy some teachers fall 
under the criticism of a minister of whom an old 
farmer said : '* He told us if we did right, we would 
get to heaven, but if we did wrong, we would go to 
hell, and he didn't seem to care much which." 

It is this sympathy which enables the teacher to be 
the spiritual father of those whom he teaches. In loco 
parentis is not to be used in the sense of merely taking 
the place of the authority of the parent, but of super- 
seding the parent in affection and desire to advance the 
interest of young people. Boswell tells that when Dr. 
Johnson went to Pembroke College, Oxford, he had as 
tutor one Jorden, whom he learned to love and re- 
spect not for his literary attainments or scholarship, 
but for his genuine interest. With characteristic fidel- 
ity Boswell records a remark of Johnson, '' Whenever 
a young man becomes Jorden's pupil he becomes his 
son." To refer again to Arnold, we have under this 
head his statement, '' If ever I could receive a new 
boy from his father without emotion I should think it 
was high time to be off." 

Arnold's opinion of a school is that it is a place, 
first, for the promotion of a character; learning and 
study are secondary and as a means to a higher end. 
The results of genuine interest were never better shown 
than in Arnold's influence. When Dean Stanley was 
once asked of the amount Arnold taught as lessons, he 
held up a small notebook and said he could put into 



UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 89 

that book all of such teaching that Arnold ever gave 
him. Arnold's influence was stimulative rather than in- 
structional. His personality is a living force, and Stan- 
ley well showed that the image of Arnold's work 
which we have before us is not the school, or the writ- 
ing, but the man himself. 

Marked development on the part of the students has 
been the outgrowth of this genuineness of interest, and 
of many great teachers it might be said, " Thou shalt 
get kings, though thou shalt be none." Of Jowett the 
statement is made that he was a " student fancier " — 
that is, one who understood students, divined their 
needs, and stimulated them to their best efforts. No 
true teacher can fail to have deep satisfaction in the 
development and directing promising students, and in 
such experience he has the richest reward for his work. 

Educational history is replete with evidences of the 
results flowing from unconscious education of great 
masters. In quoting from Agassiz in his lectures Pro- 
fessor Shaler used to say with reverence, " my master 
Louis Agassiz," and as the influence of Agassiz lived 
in Shaler, so his influence lives with multitudes of 
students. It almost came to be a tradition at Harvard 
that every one must take a course with Professor 
Shaler, " not so much for the subject as for the man." 

A high tribute was once paid to Dr. Nott of Union 
College in a statement that " He took the sweepings 
of other colleges and sent them back into society pure 
gold." In a recent discussion with regard to the rela- 
tive merits of students entering different departments 



90 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 

in a given school, one department was criticized be- 
cause of the character of students it received; but the 
one in charge of it was. able to make its defense in the 
statement that the important thing was not the char- 
acter of student received but of the product turned out, 
and he could point with pride to the honorable record 
of this department's graduates. 

In the inspiring life of Alice Freeman Palmer, Pro- 
fessor Palmer attributes the career of this remarkable 
woman to the early influence of a teacher of character 
and insight. '' It was this man," said Professor Pal- 
mer, " who made her think herself worth while." The 
coming of this teacher into the life of Miss Freeman 
is made the occasion for saying: '' Such an event has 
formed the 'turning-point for many a life, and more 
often than any other has been decisive in bringing 
about a studious career. Some one person has vital- 
ized knowledge for us — it matters little what branch — 
and almost magically our vague and variable desire 
for learning, power, public service, becomes crystal- 
lized and takes a shape which defies the battling of 
after years. Personal influence is a commanding fac- 
tor everywhere, but nowhere has it such immediate 
and lasting effect as in the schools." 

Dr. Arnold's success at Rugby came as he wished 
it to come, more largely from the atmosphere of the 
place than from mere book learning. " The manage- 
ment of boys," said he, '' has all the interest of a great 
game of chess, with living creatures for pawns and 
pieces, and your adversary the devil, who truly plays 



UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 91 

a tough game and is very hard to beat." There was 
in the English public schools a low moral tone when 
Arnold came to Rugby, and his labor was to reform 
the glaring evils. His rules were that to make a boy 
a gentleman is to treat him as one, and the way to 
make a boy truthful is to believe what he says ; and 
soon it became a tradition at Rugby that it was a 
shame to tell Arnold a lie, for he always believed it. 
The school chapel became an important institution in 
the life of the place, and here Arnold made his telling 
talks on moral cowardice, fidelity to parents, and so on. 
-In dealing with boys he knew when to see and when 
not to see, as the good of the boy could be best served. 

What has been termed the *' contagious enthusiasm " 
of Dr. Arnold's character reformed the English public 
schools. After Arnold went to Oxford as Regius Pro- 
fessor of Modern History a hypercritical and unsym- 
pathetic don wrote of his lectures, '' Everything he 
does, he does with life and force, and I cannot help 
liking his manly and open way." 

This accomplishment of Arnold's could be matched 
in many ways. President Jordan has remarked on 
what he terms the martyrdom of President Tappan 
which made the University of Michigan the great force 
that it has been among institutions of higher educa- 
tion. Alexander the Great, notable as a military com- 
mander and promoter of the world's civilization, made 
the remark that to his father he was indebted for 
living, but to his teacher, Aristotle, he was indebted 
for living well. 



92 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 

One finds in inspecting schools that to a remarkable 
degree the spirit of the directing head dominates 
teachers and pupils alike. Schools which are under 
the same official regulations and are a part of the same 
system will be found to differ widely, and with no 
explainable cause except the differences in the men 
who are back of the regulations carrying them out. 
So largely was this found to be true in a visit to 
European schools that two American teachers were 
able again and again to forecast the character of a 
school from an interview with the director. Good 
schools were found with bad official regulations and 
under physical conditions which were most unpromis- 
ing, and poor schools existed elsewhere despite good 
official regulations and what were clearly favorable 
conditions for carrying them on. The explanations- 
were in the differences in the character and personal 
influence of those who were the presiding geniuses of 
the different schools. The same differences can be 
noted in the different class-rooms of a given school. 

In a larger way great educational reforms have re- 
sulted from the spirit of some leader who has visioned 
an ideal. Near the close of the eighteenth century 
Humboldt in Germany wrote : '' The thing is not to let 
the schools and universities go on in a dreary and im- 
potent routine; the thing is to raise the culture of the 
nation ever higher and higher by their means." The 
King of Prussia called Humboldt to put his ideas into 
practice as Minister of Education, and he laid the 
foundations for the brilliant educational career that 



UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 93 

Prussia had in the nineteenth century. So George 
Kerschensteiner was called by the city of Munich to 
work out his ideas for making a system of education 
serve the industries of a community. As Schulrat of 
Munich, Kerschensteiner has made her schools probably 
the most famous of any in the world. As one goes to 
Munich and studies her schools he finds everywhere 
the touch of the master-hand of Kerschensteiner. In 
England also a great teacher and leader is quietly yet 
masterfully shaping and moulding the educational 
thought of communities and of the nation, and Michael 
E. Sadler by means of his special reports, and his 
recommendations to various cities, has exercised a last- 
ing influence upon the schools of his country. 

Teachers and educational leaders alike should wel- 
come the call to an " aristocracy of service." The true 
teacher knows that virtue goes out of him, and the one 
who gives his life without stint may sap his physical 
strength, may become a-weary in the stimulation and 
direction of other minds; but he should find deep 
satisfaction in the thought that he is weaving the warp 
and the woof of character. The true relation of the 
teacher and his pupil is illustrated by Socrates and 
Plato, Arnold and Stanley, and the Divine Master and 
His Disciples. 

The demands which a standard of unconscious edu- 
cation raises should not dishearten the teacher, but 
it should stimulate him rather to meet these demands. 
The teacher can, by his own true life and lofty purpose, 
develop the power of personality which will mould the 



94 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 

plastic life committed to his charge. Longfellow found 
inspiration for the work of a potter in the thought of 
the finished product, and he makes the potter sing at 
his task : 

Turn, turn my wheel ; this earthen jar, 

A touch can make, a touch can mar. 
And shall it to the potter say, 
' What makest thou, thou hast no hand ? ' 

Sculptors whom the world remembers and calls great 
have but chiseled imperfect creations from lifeless 
marble. How much more important is the task com- 
mitted to the teacher, of helping to form the perfect 
life. A recent description of a battle indicates that in 
the developments of the art of war, movements and the 
signs of battle become invisible through the use of 
smokeless powder and the inconspicuous color of the 
uniforms worn. The fighting-line is not discernible, 
but the observer catches here and there an indication 
of a great struggle in progress. So teachers may feel 
that in secret, away from the gaze of the world, and 
even unconsciously to themselves, they are fighting the 
battles for a higher life. The most enduring pleasure 
from teaching is in the thought that the best one is 
and can be will live again in his pupils. In this 
thought teachers should find the supreme satisfaction 
for their effort, the richest reward for their service. 

It goes without saying that the preceding statement 
of the teacher's silent influence, implies that lessons are 
to be given consciously, and that these lessons are to 



UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION. 95 

train the intelligence and perfect the skill of those be- 
ing taught. What is here urged is the unconscious 
effect of capacity and thorough work by the teacher; 
the incidental consequences of teaching well done — the 
results .from the teacher's example. 



VI. 

The Nestor of American Schoolmasters/ 

To have rounded out eighty and three years in per- 
fect health and with well-preserved faculties ; to have 
completed sixty-four years in the arduous calling of 
a teacher, the last twenty-nine of which were without 
a day's absence because of illness ; to have taught high 
ideals and shown a worthy example to above twenty 
thousand young men, and sent them forth to usefulness 
and honor in public and private life; to have been 
schoolmaster to the United States senators, governors, 
and judges; to see his children and grandchildren pass 
through his own school, and in the heyday of youth 
to welcome his great-grandchildren as associates in 
the pursuit of knowledge; to stand as a stalwart oak 
while friends, colleagues, and family pass to the be- 
yond; to keep amid all perplexities and vicissitudes a 
simple trust and an unswerving devotion to duty — this 
is but the life history of Zephaniah Hopper of the 
Philadelphia Central High School. No citizen of 
Philadelphia is more respected than is this unpreten- 

1 Reprinted with slight change from The School Review, February, 
T907. 



NESTOR OF AMERICAN SCHOOLMASTERS. 97 

tious teacher of young men, who seems to have found 
in disinterested service the secret of perpetual youth. 

Zephaniah Hopper is of Quaker stock. As his 
father was a carpenter of limited means, and young 
Zephaniah the oldest of seven children, he was kept 
at school with difficulty, and kept there at all only be- 
cause certain of his teachers urged that the lad's earn- 
estness should be rewarded with an opportunity to 
continue his studies. Of his school days Professor 
Hopper says he is sure that any good showing he 
may have made was more the result of diligent appli- 
cation than of superior talent, as he has always ac- 
quired knowledge with difficulty. 

In 1838 the Central High School was established, 
and a year later young Hopper entered as a member 
of its second class. Marked ability on his part gained 
for him promotion to the first class, and he was grad- 
uated in 1842. At the Central High School he came 
under the presidency of Alexander Dallas Bache, a 
great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin and a man who 
had already made for himself an honored name by his 
report on Education in Europe. The Central High 
School in which Zephaniah Hopper was educated was 
the embodiment of the educational ideas of one of the 
most advanced thinkers of the time, and that school 
still bears the mark of Bache's influence. 

Professor Hopper's life as a student and teacher 
covers the whole period of free schools in Pennsyl- 
vania. While he was still at a private school in 1835, 
Thaddeus Stevens made his impassioned defense of 



98 NESTOR OF AMERICAN SCHOOLMASTERS. 

the free school bill and secured state-supported schools. 
The Central High School was an early result of free 
education in Pennsylvania. It is also one of the oldest 
public high schools of the country. Few schools have 
done more for their communities than has the Central 
High School for Philadelphia; in manufactures and 
commerce, in the professions and public service, its 
graduates have had honored places, and throughout 
they have stood for what is best in the life of the city. 
Of this great school Zephaniah Hopper was first the 
product, and in it he has later been a most positive 
and beneficent influence. 

In the autumn of 1842 Professor Hopper began his 
career as a teacher, at the salary of $200 a year. At 
this time he walked a distance of seven miles to his 
school in the morning and back again at night. Five 
years later the young schoolmaster became principal 
of the Jefferson Grammar School in Philadelphia, and 
here he soon made a reputation by his character and 
earnestness. These were the days of learning by 
effort, and Professor Hopper tells how he came to 
realize that in accurate work and strict drill there is a 
moral quality as well as a mental discipline. Few 
men were more famed than he as drillmaster and dis- 
ciplinarian. Corporal punishment was common — 
"birching," the subject of this sketch calls it; and he 
is still remembered by Jefferson school boys as the 
possessor of a vigorous arm that used to knock the 
dust out of the jackets of offenders; but the remi- 
niscences of those days never fail to mention what are 



NESTOR OF AMERICAN SCHOOLMASTERS. 99 

likely the most striking characteristics of this man — 
his sense of justice and his fine discrimination in deal- 
ing with boys. The craft of the schoolmaster has 
changed much since the forties, but this great teacher 
has kept pace with the changes, and he is firm in the 
opinion that the days that are now are better than were 
those of old time. 

The Jefferson Grammar School developed such an 
esprit de corps that its students of an earlier genera- 
tion still point with pride to their connection with the 
school. The record of those from this school in pass- 
ing for admission into the Central High School, and 
the character of their work after being admitted, re- 
flected such credit on their principal that in 1854 he 
was asked to become a teacher in the school that had 
educated him. From the date of his appointment his 
service was continuous for above fifty-three years, and 
the wonder is, as was remarked by the late United 
States Commissioner of Education, that human strength 
could have endured for so long a time. 

Professor Hopper began as a teacher of English, 
but his success as a private tutor in mathematics led 
to his transfer to that department. In 1869 he be- 
came a teacher in the Artisans' Night School in the 
Central High School building, and later he was for 
twenty years principal of this school. Twice, for a 
space aggregating above two years. Professor Hopper 
was acting president of the Central High School ; but 
he refused to accept the presidency permanently, 
merely discharging the duties of the office until a suit- 



100 NESTOR OF AMERICAN SCHOOLMASTERS. 

able person could be found to relieve him, when he 
returned to the more intimate association he would 
have with pupils in the classroom. These decisions 
now appear as an evidence of the man's inspired com- 
mon sense, for they have contributed to length of life 
and increased usefulness. 

In 1892 Professor Hopper lost his life's companion, 
to whom he had been married in 1845. His married 
life had been almost ideal, and, as he is a man of deep 
feeling and close home ties, the loss of his wife proved 
almost more than he could bear. He found comfort 
in his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchil- 
dren, and through them he has kept up the family in- 
terest ; but he has also found consolation in communion 
with nature, and he has become in his later years an 
ardent and skilled botanist. No youth ever pursued 
knowledge with keener zeal than is shown by this 
young octogenarian. His regret is that he did not 
start in this field of science earlier in life, for, as he 
says, he fears that he will not be able to compass it to 
his satisfaction. 

With the new interest the schoolmaster connected 
himself at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 
Sciences and joined its botanical expeditions. Not 
content with these, he organizes parties of his own, or 
goes alone; and in this way he has explored the coun- 
try for many miles, and has discovered many rare 
specimens of flowers. Each season brings its delights ; 
in the winter he studies trees and works in the exten- 
sive herbarium of the Academy; spring, summer and 



NESTOR OF AMERICAN SCHOOLMASTERS. 101 

autumn flowers are eagerly sought, the dates of their 
appearance noted, and these compared with the times 
of their former appearance. This interest is kept up 
at Atlantic City, where Professor Hopper spends his 
vacations. In the early mornings and forenoons of 
the summer he takes long walks and gathers the flow- 
ers, to which he devotes the afternoons. He takes 
much pride in mounting his specimens and has pre- 
pared a private herbarium. As duplicate specimens 
are secured, they are prepared, and either the originals 
or the duplicates are presented to his friends. 

Those whq know of this schoolmaster's interest often 
send him specimens of rare flowers from a distance, 
and he is always ready to exchange for these the 
flowers of his own locality. His diary contains re- 
peated mention of some rare walk, some new flower, or 
the special beauty of an old friend. The activity of 
the man in this field of his endeavor is striking. His 
diary records that in 1903 he made eighty-eight botan- 
ical journeys, secured and mounted over four hundred 
specimens, and had twenty correspondents on botan- 
ical subjects. And all this time our botanist has been 
a teacher of mathematics. But he has found in botany 
an opportunity for out-of-door life, a means of health, 
and a diversion from his regular duties. In short. 
Professor Hopper attributes his present preserved 
health to his interest in botany, and he recommends 
the rule: *' Ride a hobby and keep young." 

But what of the teaching of Zephaniah Hopper all 
these years? Long ago he took as his ideal: " Never 



102 NESTOR OF AMERICAN SCHOOLMASTERS. 

be old," and, '' Be a friend of the boys." Those who 
know the man can testify how well he has realized 
these ideals. At eighty-three he walked with a 
sprightly, strong step ; his carriage was erect, and his 
attention alert. With a show of pride he says, " I 
walk from my house to the school (a distance of six- 
teen city blocks, or nearly two miles) in exactly 
twenty-seven minutes," adding with a twinkle of the 
eye, " which I think is as well as I could have done 
sixty years ago." In considering Professor Hopper, 
one is reminded at many points of Dr. Thomas Ar- 
nold; he has Arnold's pride of physical strength, and 
the feeling that any show of weakness would lower 
him in the estimation of his pupils. On a visit to his 
room when he was past eighty-two, he was found 
standing in the center of the room ; there were a dozen 
boys at the board; everything was attention, and the 
work was going on admirably. One felt that this 
quiet, positive man might be sixty, but senses belied 
the statement that he was above fourscore. 

The secret of Professor Hopper's success in teaching 
is preparedness and faithful devotion to details. Reg- 
ularly he arrives at school at five minutes before eight ; 
he goes to his room, lays out his working materials, 
and prepares for every detail of the day's work. No 
general ever planned a campaign with greater minute- 
ness than that with which this teacher plans the work 
of each day. As a result he is never caught off his 
guard ; he is prepared for every emergency. A presi- 
dent of the Philadelphia Board of Education, who was 



NESTOR OF AMERICAN SCHOOLMASTERS. 103 

in Professor Hopper's class in 1854, says of him that 
he commanded the respect of every boy that came to 
his room; that his very presence preserved order. If 
this great teacher could ^iyq to the teachers of America 
the practical lesson of the worth of preparedness, he 
would render a greater service than would be done by 
the writing of innumerable books on the theory of 
education. 

It is as a friend to the boys that Professor Hopper 
is most attractive. Fairness, friendliness, and cheer- 
fulness have been his watchwords. But his friendship 
is no weak sentimentalism that coddles boys and con- 
dones their shortcomings ; there are in his character a 
ruggedness and stern justice, which are shown in deal- 
ing with dereliction ; and yet no boy ever passed from 
his influence without feeling that he had come under 
the shadow of one who hated meanness and loved 
nobility. A man could not well have lived for sixty- 
three years in intimate association with young lives 
and not love those for whom he has worked. Pro- 
fessor Hopper's colleagues know that his justice is 
always enforced with a thought of the good of the 
boys, and if in aught he errs, it is in tempering justice 
with too great mercy. He has been respected to a re- 
markable degree by the boys of the Central High 
School, and he is one of the few whom the successive 
generations of students have not dubbed with a nick- 
name. True, his length of service has been the occa- 
sion of some pleasant raillery, but always attended 
with respect, and this pleasantry has been enjoyed by 



101 .\f'STOR OF AMERICAN SCHOOLMASTERS. 

no one more than by Professor Hopper himself. A 
song has been composed, going to the tune of " Yan- 
kee Doodle," and containing such lines as : 



and, 



When Zephaniah was quite small, 
He played with Billy Penn, sir ; 

Zephaniah is our joy, 

Our " Grand Old Man ", our youngest boy. 



A sight never to be forgotten is the greeting to their 
.old teacher by the Central High School alumni at their 
annual reunions. He is always called on for a speech, 
and he always gets the same generous, hearty welcome. 
His face beams with pride as he speaks to the large 
body of men whom he has helped to train ; many of 
these men have come to high honors, and* not a few of 
them seem Professor Hopper's seniors. As one con- 
templates this scene, he cannot avoid the conclusion : 
To be such a man, and sit thus enthroned in the heart's 
affection, is better than to wear a crown of empire. 

In passing to his broader life, we find Professor 
Hopper a useful citizen, a Christian gentleman of 
^temperate habits and refined tastes. He is probably 
without an enemy in the world. Of him in truth we 
could say: '' He knows not how to speak a word of 
harshness or how to make a foe." In these last days 
there come from every side tributes to his life and 
work. His name has become a household word in 
Philadelphia. John Wanamaker writes his* congratu- 
lations, and adds : '' I remember you almost back to 
my first days in Philadelphia."- 



NESTOR OF AMERICAN SCHOOLMASTERS. 105 

In these hurrying times men have come and gone 
and are forgotten, but here in the serenity of youthful 
age is one who has gone on and on, and whose influ- 
ence will go on forever. Not only is Professor Hop- 
per a great teacher, but he is a remarkable example of 
the blessings of a life lived without worldly, ambition 
or ostentation ; he has the rewards of a man who seeks 
in a quiet way to do day by day the task which the 
successive days bring. When asked in 1906 to express 
a sentiment with regard to his past life, he said in 
words choked with feeling : '' When I reflect that I 
have had continuous employment as a teacher since 
1842, that I have had good health, and felt in love 
with my work, I cannot find words to express my 
gratitude." 



VII. 

Professional Ethics. 

The 1908 Report of the American Bar Associa- 
tion's Committee on Canons of Professional Ethics 
gives further evidence of the tendency to recognize a 
higher standard of conduct, and to give effect to claims 
of public welfare upon those who are following what 
are properly called the liberal professions. An old 
story goes that an Irishman, in passing a tombstone 
on which there was the epitaph, ''A Great Lawyer 
and an Honest Man," remarked, " Faith and has it 
come to burying two men in one grave?" The law- 
yers now come forward with the claim that honesty is 
a basal requisite for one to become a great lawyer. 

In 1903 the American Medical Association adopted 
the so-called Principles of Medical Ethics, which were 
copyrighted in the name of the Association and were 
printed and distributed by the Association as what 
was termed a " suggestive and advisory document." 
This is a compact summary in three chapters. The 
first is under the heading, " The Duties of the Physi- 
cians to Their Patients;" the second, ''The Duties of 
Physicians to Each Other and the Profession at 
106 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 107 

Large;" and the third, "The Duties of the Medical 
Profession to the General Public." In the statement 
of the duties of the physician to his patients, there are 
eight general sections covering a wide range of inter- 
est, and in general, we can say that there is in this 
statement a careful definition of a physician's duty, 
and directions for a course of conduct in almost all 
relations that may arise. 

There have been numerous evidences in the local 
medical associations that this code of principles is not 
a dead letter and that the professional organizations 
have been binding these rules upon their fellow prac- 
titioners and bringing to discredit, both in their own 
associations and in the public mind, those who will 
not abide by the standards. 

Similarly the American Electrical Engineers, at a 
convention in Niagara Falls in 1907, referred the 
question of a code of ethics to the Board of Directors, 
and this board later, by resolution, formally approved 
the drafting of such a code. A preliminary statement 
was drawn up and presented to the engineering pro- 
fession. The material in this statement is classified 
under six general heads, the enumeration of which 
indicates the character of the topics dealt with. First, 
" General Principles ;" second, " Relations of the Elec- 
trical Engineer to his Employer, Customer or Client;" 
third, " Relations of the Electrical Engineer to the 
Ownership of the Records of his Work;" fourth, " Re- 
lation of the Electrical Engineer to the Public;" fifth, 



108 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

" Relation of the Electrical Engineer to the Engineer- 
ing Fraternity;" and sixth, " Relation of the Engineer 
to the Standards of his Profession." This preliminary 
draft was distributed to the members of the Institute 
of Electrical Engineers with a request for suggested 
changes, to be revised and presented for final adoption 
at a future meeting. 

This same subject was made the theme of the presi- 
dential address before the American Institute of Min- 
ing Engineers in 1908. Mining engineers were cau- 
tioned against making favorable reports on properties 
for sale in cases where they were to receive payment 
if a sale resulted from their reports. An engineer, it 
was said, must needs have an unparalleled reputation 
for integrity to endure that revelation of this situation 
which he cannot without dishonesty withhold. It will 
be observed that the practice here criticized amounts 
in effect to the contingent- fee abuse of the lawyers, to 
be considered later in this essay. 

In the teaching profession and in the ministry, 
standards of conduct are well understood as bearing 
on the relations which one sustains to his immediate 
constituency, to those who are carrying on the same 
sort of work as himself, and to the general public. 
Recently the suggestion has been advanced in several 
quarters that a definite formulation of professional 
ethics for these two callings would be of advantage. 
The statement that a formal code is necessary for the 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 109 

professional conduct of clergymen appears at first like 
carrying the demand for professional ethics to an ex- 
treme, and yet one who observes soon sees' that among 
clergymen and in the work of the churches there is 
much regrettable jealousy and overreaching. More 
regard for the general good, which is the underlying 
principle of professional ethics, would result in greater 
harmony among the churches and a larger usefulness 
of clergymen. 

The State Educational Association of Alabama set 
an example to similar associations elsewhere by adopt- 
ing in 1909 a code of ethics for teachers. Twenty-two 
years earlier the State Bar Association of the same 
State led the way by adopting the first formal code of 
ethics for lawyers. 

The Alabama Teacher's Code opens with a state- 
ment that its aim is " to assist teachers in settling diffi- 
cult questions of professional conduct, to quicken their 
sympathies for each other, to exalt their professional 
ideals, etc." Quotation with approval of such senti- 
ments as '' Teaching is the noblest of professions and 
the sorriest of trades," and '' Example and practice 
are more efficient than precept and theory," can but 
have a helpful effect. 

Thirty -three '* Rules and Principles " make up the 
Alabama Code. These lay upon teachers the neces- 
sity for a high standaj-d of personal and professional 
conduct. Teachers are enjoined to refrain from " all 
vocations or pursuits whereby the profession of teach- 



110 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

ing may be brought into disrepute." They are cau- 
tioned against " undue political ambitions and activ- 
ities." Teachers are also commanded to support the 
dignity and good name of Boards of Education, super- 
intendents and others in authority. The merit system 
of appointments of teachers is endorsed, and it is urged 
that teachers be prompt and zealous in urging such a 
system of appointments. Mere release of a Board 
of Education, it is held, " is not sufficient to justify a 
teacher in terminating a contract in a shorter time than 
that allowed by law." 

Exploitation of a teacher's reputation by compli- 
mentary press notices, or advertisements, is condemned 
as undignified and unprofessional. Teachers are also 
commanded not " to bid for positions." '' It is un- 
professional, undignified and dishonorable for a 
teacher to apply for a position not avowedly vacant." 
Teachers are similarly charged not to use any influ- 
ence whatever to handicap the present incumbent in a 
position or create a vacancy. It is declared to be un- 
dignified for a teacher to succeed to a given position 
at a salary lower than was paid to his predecessor. 

The practice of using the teaching profession as ** a 
stepping-stone to other more profitable and so-called 
higher professions " is deprecated and condemned in 
strong terms. Adverse criticism of a predecessor or a 
fellow-teacher is held to be '' unethical," and teachers 
are urged to stand together ajid help each other in 
promoting a common cause. The extent to which the 
suggested help to each other is carried is shown by a 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. Ill 

rule which says, " Surviving teachers are especially 
enjoined to attend carefully to the education and em- 
ployment of the children of deceased teachers." 

Wisconsin teachers also have prepared a formal 
statement of principles to serve as a standard of con- 
duct. This is briefer and more general, though sim- 
ilar to the code adopted in Alabama. Beyond ques- 
tion, many teachers are acting even in advance of these 
Codes of Ethics, but many are not, and the formal 
fixing of standards of conduct would be a gain to the 
whole craft of teachers, and to the larger interests 
which they serve. 

Reputable newspapers and magazines, and publish- 
ing-houses as well, maintain a high standard of pro- 
fessional conduct. One gives out definite interviews 
to the great dailies with confidence that these will be 
used as they are given out, and this confidence is rarely 
betrayed. Matter is kept for days by newspapers, 
according to promise, and it is made public only at a 
time agreed upon. It is said of Charles A. Dana, one 
of the greatest newspaper editors of the last genera- 
tion, that he chose men as much for character as for 
brains. Integrity and square dealing are the rule in 
journalism, and one who departs from these loses caste 
with his craft and ceases to have influence with the 
public. 

Accountancy is one of the youngest callings making 
claims for recognition as a liberal profession, and 



112 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

closely related as it is to business practice, it is most 
natural that those who are engaged in it should raise 
the question of the ethics by which they should be 
guided. The Certified Public Accountants in recent 
conventions have given a leading place to a discussion 
of professional ethics, and approved the provision for 
a standing committee to consider cases of doubtful 
practice and report their findings in such cases to the 
annual meeting. It can be well seen that here is a 
large field in which abstract principles of justice must 
be adapted to difficult relations in a daily course of 
conduct. The accountants have sought to make a line 
of distinction between what in a broad way they term 
business competition and professional competition; 
and as with the other professions, there is with them 
a recognition of three relations which the accountant 
sustains in carrying on his work. These are set down 
as his relation to his client, his relation to the general 
public, and his relation to his fellow-practitioners. It 
is held, and rightly, that the relations of the account- 
ant to his client do not justify him in doing violence 
to his obligations to the general public, and that he 
should have- full regard for a high standard of conduct 
in relation to his professional brethren. 

The need for professional ethics is perhaps more 
obvious in the law than in any other of the liberal call- 
ings, and here is well illustrated the fact that a new- 
comer in a profession is required for his own success 
to follow the practice of those in the profession when 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 113 

he enters. Thus exists the need for defined standards 
and high ideals. More than fifty years ago Justice 
Sharswood declared of the law that so many tempta- 
tions arose in its practice, and so many difficult ques- 
tions of duty were presented that in the path of the 
young practitioner there were " pitfalls and mantraps 
at every step." Nor have the difficulties for lawyers 
and the need for clearly-defined professional standards 
diminished in recent years. The growth of new eco- 
nomic interests with new forms of practice, known as 
corporation law, and the conflict of private gain and 
public welfare, present a new need for a standard 
which happily the lawyers are now seeking to establish. 

The attempt to set a standard of conduct for lawyers 
is not new, nor is it confined to our own country. 
Christian V of Denmark and Norway promulgated 
such a code in 1683. Dr. Samuel Johnson in 1765 
formulated a prayer for lawyers which was a plea for 
knowledge, '' to direct the doubtful and instruct the 
ignorant, to prevent wrongs and terminate conten- 
tions." In the German States of modern times there 
is administered to lawyers a binding oath for the ex- 
action of fair fees, for aid in the settlement and not 
the continuance of suits, and for promoting justice and 
the public welfare. 

David Hoffman, of Baltimore, early in. the nine- 
teenthi century formulated fifty resolves concerning the 
professional conduct of lawyers, which resolves gave 
wholesome regard for the rights and dignity of judges, 
opponents, witnesses and clients. One of these decla- 



114 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

rations was a refusal on the part of a lawyer to become 
a '' partner in knavery " with a client to accomplish 
unworthy ends. The last of Hoffman's resolutions 
was that the lawyer should read the preceding forty- 
nine resolutions at least twice every year of his pro- 
fessional life. 

Justice George Sharswood's book on Professional 
Ethics was published first in 1854. Of this book a 
distinguished lawyer later said, " It deserves to be 
written in letters of gold." This book has remained 
up to the present a classic on the subject with which it 
deals. In 1907 Sharswood's work was printed as one 
of the reports of the American Bar Association and 
distributed gratuitously to all its members — the only 
book ever thus reprinted. Its influence is obvious on 
the codes of professional ethics adopted by the bar 
associations in several states and the American Bar 
Association. 

In addition to the foregoing, repeated declarations 
have been made against questionable practices by law- 
yers, and several of these have lately been gathered 
together and circulated by the American Bar Associa- 
tion. Abraham Lincoln advised lawyers to "discour- 
age litigation." Said he, " Point out how nominal 
winners are often the real losers." And again, "As a 
peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of 
being a good man." He advised such a " moral tone " 
in the law that bad men would be driven out of the 
profession. 

Codes of legal ethics have been adopted by the bar 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 115 

associations of quite a group of states, the first of 
which was Alabama in 1887. In addition to the for- 
mal codes, oaths of admission to the bar in a number 
of states prescribed high standards of conduct for law- 
yers. One of the most advanced of the oaths of ad- 
mission is that of Washington, which has been made a 
model for several other states, and which in its main 
features has been recently approved by the American 
Bar Association. 

At the 1906 meeting of the American Bar Associa- 
tion, a committee reported favorably on the advisabil- 
ity and practicability of formulating and adopting a 
Canon of Professional Ethics. A further report was 
made at the Portland meeting in 1907, at which time 
the Bar Association ordered a committee to draft a 
Canon of Professional Ethics and have it ready for 
adoption at the 1908 meeting of the Association. 
Henry St. George Tucker of Virginia was chairman 
of this committee and Lucien Hugh Alexander of 
Pennsylvania was its secretary. On the committee 
were such distinguished jurists as Justice David J. 
Brewer and Judge Alton B. Parker. Justice Brewer, 
in writing on the work of the committee, said that the 
bar will lose its place unless it is a leader not merely 
in brain strength, but also in moral power. 

The canons as prepared by the committee were sub- 
mitted to the members of the Association in May, 
1908, for preliminary consideration, and as an evi- 
dence of the interest which they elicited more than one 
thousand communications relative to them were re- 



116 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

ceived by the committee before the August meeting of 
the Association. In the main there was cordial en- 
dorsement of the canons which the committee had pre- 
pared, and after some slight changes in wording, 
which were made in advance of the meeting, and one 
amendment on the floor of the convention, the canons 
were duly adopted and promulgated as an authorita- 
tive standard of professional conduct. 

The code of the American Bar Association is 
throughout an evidence of a high regard for public 
rights and general welfare. Here is an attempt to 
maintain standards which make lawyers in reality 
" high priests of justice." Thus the legal profession 
is tending to the standards set by Sharswood when he 
considers ethics under two heads : those duties that 
the lawyer owes to the public or commonwealth; and 
those which he owes to his client, his professional 
brethren, and the court. The first of these is properly 
held to be more far-reaching than the second, and 
should outweigh it in case of conflict, for, said Shars- 
wood, *' there should be a feeling in the public mind 
that, taken together, all the machinery of the law is a 
strong castle in which dwells justice." A lawyer as 
well as a judge should be regarded as a permanent 
officer whose business it is to promote right. And if 
he does not contribute to that end, he defeats the very 
purpose for which law exists, and denies his own right 
to be. Incidentally one of the sections of the recent 
canon declares, '' The profession is a branch of the 
administration of justice and not a mere money-getting 
trade." 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 117 

The sections of the American Bar Association 
canons which are of most interest to the general public 
are those limiting litigation, those with regard to fees, 
and the one which defines the relations which a lawyer 
may sustain to his client whom he knows to be guilty. 

Excessive fees are disapproved, and the rule is laid 
down that the client's ability to pay is no excuse for an 
overcharge, though poverty is a good reason for a low 
charge, or even no charge at all. Contracts for a con- 
tingent fee, dependent on the issues of the litigation, 
are looked upon with disfavor, and it is expressly 
stated that "the lawyer- should not purchase any in- 
terest in the subject-matter of the litigation which he 
is conducting;" and it is further declared that in states 
where contingent fees are sanctioned by law, they 
should be under the supervision of the courts, so that 
the client may be protected from unjust charges. 
Under the laws of champerty and maintenance, con- 
tingent fees are prohibited in England, and they are 
also restricted in some American states. A limited 
observation serves to confirm Justice Sharswood's 
strictures on contingent fees : they promote litigation, 
and the practice is well termed " purchasing " a suit 
at law; contingent fees make a lawyer unduly inter- 
ested in winning his case at all hazards ; and in the 
end they establish a relation of higgling between the 
lawyer and his client. A witty Irish litigant when 
asked the meaning of contingent fee said : '' If the 
case is lost, the lawyer won't get anything ; if the case 
is won, I won't get anything." Of course we are 



118 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

familiar with the defense of this practice, that it is 
'' the poor man's fee " and that without it some cases 
could not be presented for trial; but this defense 
scarcely appeals, especially if lawyers were to live up 
to the spirit of section twelve of the Canon, in which 
there is the suggestion of small fees or free service for 
those in poverty. In a last analysis, the practice of 
conducting suits for contingent fees establishes a 
wrong relation between the lawyer and his client, be- 
tween the case being tried and the court trying the 
same, and such practices will probably in the long run 
result in more harm than good. We can then but ex- 
press the hope that lawyers will not in this particular 
avail themselves of the permission which the law some- 
times allows them. 

To a layman, the Canon seems insufficient in one 
particular at least, namely, in the relation which the 
lawyer should sustain to his client. The statement is 
made that " a lawyer should not do for his client what 
his own sense of honor would prohibit him from doing 
for himself." This is well, as is also the third specifi- 
cation in the suggested oath for admission to the prac- 
tice of law earlier administered in the state of Wash- 
ington and some other states, namely, '' I will not 
counsel or maintain any suit or proceeding which shall 
appear to me to be unjust, nor any defense except such 
as I believe to be honestly debatable under the law of 
the land." No doubt the position taken in this part of 
the oath is in advance of that taken by most writers on 
legal ethics, as it is in advance of the practice largely 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 119 

prevailing. But the Canon and the practices of the 
legal profession do not seem to come up to this high 
position. 

Sharswood, in his Professional Ethics, held it to 
be proper for one to enter on the defense of a cjient 
even though he knev^r the client to be guilty, and he 
argued that such a course vi^as not " screening the 
guilty from punishment," but it was to make sure that 
the accused had a fair trial and was convicted in ac- 
cordance with the law and established precedent; but 
in another connection the same writer said it was in 
some measure the duty of the counsel to be the keeper 
of the conscience of his client, and he remarked on 
what was termed an important clause in the official 
oath of his time, that a lawyer should "delay no man's 
cause for lucre or malice," a clause which is continued 
as part of the oath recommended to the states by the 
American Bar Association. 

It is obvious that the relations of a lawyer to his 
client should be purely professional ; to society in gen- 
eral he owes a higher duty than to his client, which 
higher duty is in brief the promotion of the right. A 
comparison has well been made under this head with 
the relation of a surgeon to his patient. If a patient 
wishes an abortion committed and is willing to pay 
for the service, the surgeon has a higher duty which 
precludes him from doing the thing asked. The fif- 
teenth section of the Canon, under the head, " How 
Far a Lawyer May Go in Supporting a Client's Cause," 
says in the first place: " Nothing operates more cer- 



120 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

tainly to create or foster popular prejudice against 
lawyers as a class, and to deprive the profession of the 
full measure of public esteem and confidence which 
belongs to the proper discharge of its duties, than does 
the false claim often set up by the unscrupulous in de- 
fense of questionable transactions, that it is the duty 
of the lawyer to do whatever may enable him to suc- 
ceed in winning his client's cause." 

One finds difficulty in harmonizing the statement 
made above with the following in the same section : a 
lawyer '' owes entire devotion to the interests of his 
client, warm zeal in the maintenance and defense of 
his cause and the exertion of the utmost skill and abil- 
ity, to the end that nothing may be taken or withheld 
from him save by the rules of the law, legally applied." 
While this may not be contrary to the proceeding, it 
permits a course of conduct not without grave dangers. 
Nor does the latter part of the same section, which 
again declares a high ideal, viz., that the lawyer 
" must obey his own conscience and not that of his 
client," entirely remove the suggestion of the sentence 
above cited. Lawyers by aiming to defeat justice in 
aiding the guilty to escape bring their profession 
under the very reproach from which they seek to. de- 
liver it. 

These comments are not made as strictures on what 
must prove a valuable document. They are urged 
rather to indicate if possible a higher standard of con- 
duct. The opening statement of the committee's re- 
port is, after all, the most important one, namely, that 



PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 121 

no code can particularize all the duties of a lawyer, 
and the enumeration of some duties should not be con- 
sidered as denying the existence of others equally 
binding. In brief, the spirit of this code is the spirit 
of Sharwood's Ethics — *' no man can be truly a great 
lawyer who is not in every sense of the word a good 
man." Now, more than in Justice Sharwood's time, 
are many temptations to a young lawyer, and there is 
grave need that there be held up the ideal, " the strict- 
est principles of integrity and honor are his only 
safety." 

The American Bar Association's committee urged 
the distribution of its report among the several state 
bar associations, with the thought that the adoption of 
the Canon by the state associations and the establish- 
ment of the suggested oath of admission to the bar by 
state statute would give a practical method of accom- 
plishing the ends desired. Several states promptly 
complied with the suggested action. The committee 
further wisely recommended that instruction in pro- 
fessional ethics be made a part of the law-school course 
in preparation for admission to the bar. 

The action of the American Bar Association in 
formulating and adopting a standard of conduct can- 
not fail to have a far-reaching influence on the legal 
profession and all related callings. The closing words 
of Sharwood's Ethics, the spirit of which is embodied 
in the Bar Association's Canon, are as a clarion call 
not to the legal profession alone, but to all occupa- 
tions : " Let us beware, then, of raising these objects 



122 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. 

of ambition, wealth, learning, honor and influence, 
worthy though they be, into an undue importance.' 
Nor let us in the too ardent pursuit of what are only 
means, lose sight of the great end of our being." 



VIII. 

A New Commercialism. 

Identity of the ideas of fraud and of success in 
business is very old. The Greeks looked upon gains 
from trade as ignoble, and in some cases they disquali- 
fied successful merchants from holding office. With 
the Romans, the god of thieves was also the god of 
merchants, and Cicero expressed the prejudice of his 
time in a statement that retail trade was vile and sor- 
did, and that it could thrive only by much lying. The 
German Tauschen for trade, and Taiischen for decep- 
tion, show this same identity. '' Business," Tallyrand 
remarked, ''means other men's money;" and in the 
present times it has often been felt that it has meant 
also gettin-g the blood and souls of others. 

A business sentiment frequently expressed — that in 
placing investments a knave is to be trusted sooner 
than a fool — implies that business men are either of 
the knave or of the fool class. '' I pick out a good 
butcher and ' stand ' by him," was the explanation of 
a housewife whose table was always well served with 
meats, and so we might multiply the evidences to show 
the popular notion that business morality is low. 

In the recent large accumulations of money there 

123 



124 A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 

are evidences of demoralization due to riches, and the 
corruption of morals. " Money hunger " has been a 
passion appealing to our time in many ways. Says 
Bishop Spaulding : '' It is plain that our besetting sin, 
as a people, is not intemperance or unchastity, but dis- 
honesty. From the watering and manipulating of 
stocks to the adulteration of food and drink, from the 
booming of towns and lands to the selling of votes and 
the buying of office, from the halls of Congress to the 
policeman's beat, from the capitalist who controls 
trusts and syndicates to the mechanic who does in- 
ferior work, the taint of dishonesty is everywhere." ^ 

Business under modern conditions has changed in its 
methods, and as President Hadley points out, evi- 
dences are not wanting that men have one standard of 
conduct in their private life and another in their busi- 
ness. Our moral ideas have not been applied to the 
new forms of business attending the growth of corpor- 
ation management. Stockholders have sought to avoid 
their responsibility by leaving all to the boards of 
directors, who have been strictly held to show a gain 
in business. The morality of personal conduct has not 
been applied to modern corporations; as directors, 
men have either failed to direct, or they have done 
things they would denounce in their personal affairs. 

The pity of this is increased by the fact that the 
morality of commercial life reaches out to the govern- 
ment and to every interest of society. Dr. H, A, 

1 Means and Ends of Edtication, 146. 



A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 125 

Boardman, years ago, well remarked that the morals 
of society will become what those of its business men 
are, and that every community has the deepest interest 
in keeping its standards of commercial morality at the 
highest possible point. Mr. Lincoln Steffens speaks 
thus of his studies in American municipal govern- 
ments : " My groping into the misgovernment of 
cities has drawn me everywhere, but always out of 
politics into business . . . business started the cor- 
ruption of politics." 

The facts above dwelt upon should be a cause of 
concern, as the absence of morals from daily business 
affairs has led to hollowness of life and the ultimate 
failure of many nations, and it will have the same 
effect upon our country unless they are corrected. 
The wise Catholic Bishop of Peoria asks, '' Is the 
material progress of the nineteenth century a cradle or 
a grave?" Which of these it shall become depends 
upon the degree to which high moral purpose becomes 
a part of our commercial life. 

Success has not attended the teaching of abstract 
ethics cut off from practical affairs. Problems in 
casuistry prove as fruitless in affecting conduct as were 
the theoretical speculations of the schoolmen during 
the Middle Ages. The moral awakening of recent 
years has resulted from an appeal to the concrete. 
This is but going back to the supreme moral Teacher 
of all time, who gave the rule, " Render unto Caesar 
the things that are Caesar's and render unto God the 
things that are God's." " Thus," says Dr. Albert 



126 A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 

Shaw, " it is the positive and aggressive attitude to- 
ward life, the ethics of action rather than the ethics of 
negation, that most control the modern business world 
and that may make our modern business man the most 
potent factor for good in this, his own, industrial 
period." ^ 

Attention needs to be directed against the too com- 
mon practice of spurning commercialism and indus- 
trialism as being of low order, and therefore to be de- 
spised. These activities must continue, and the matter 
of supremest moment is what kind of industrialism 
and commercialism we shall have. As Dr. Shaw has 
again remarked, " If it is not possible to promote 
things ideally good through these very forces of com- 
mercial and industrial life, then the outlook is a 
gloomy one." 

But one who carefully notes the tendencies of our 
time cannot but feel that within recent years there are 
evidenced hopeful signs in changing standards of busi- 
ness success. Wealth is now being classified as legiti- 
mate and predatory, and the latter far from being, as 
once the case, a ground for distinction, brings discredit 
to its possessors. Time was when money was regarded 
as simply quantitative; now it has come to be qualita- 
tive as well ; nor are we so prone as formerly to forget 
the antecedents of wealth. The descendants of the 
predatory rich who in '' gilded idleness " become the 
drones of society, are likely more and more to have 

1 The Business Career. 



A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 127 

visited on them the disapproval of public opinion, both 
for their idleness and for the sins of their fathers. 

We should rejoice that this is so ; and also that fewer 
commercial crimes escape punishment; that adultera- 
tion of drugs, medicines, foods, etc., is guarded 
against; that frauds in railroads, coal, oil, packing, in- 
surance and other corporations are exposed ; that there 
is a higher moral tone in business ; that commerce and 
industry are coming to be regarded as necessary and 
worthy callings ; and finally, that there is at present a 
genuine desire to create a new and higher commercial- 
ism. But there is need for repeated emphasis of right 
standards of conduct in commercial life. 

Observation confirms the statement that many young 
men go into business with the feeling that their profits 
will come from some sort of sharp practice, the getting 
of an advantage in some underhand way. At the 
same time the successful and experienced men who 
have been long in business are settled in their convic- 
tion that only absolutely square dealing pays. 

Evidences of the latter statement are numerous. 
Mr. E. L. Scott, of Sears, Roebuck & Co., recently 
stated what in his judgment business men would prefer 
as qualities in those who come as their young helpers. 
Of these he specified four, namely, character, health, 
ability and knowledge, and in order to satisfy himself 
of the correctness of his statement he made up what he 
termed an inventory sheet of the traits of a large num- 
ber of men in important positions. Under the head of 
character he enumerated morality, temperance, indus- 



128 A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 

try, capacity for work, ambition, loyalty, obedience, 
judgment, self-control, sympathy, courtesy, cheerful- 
ness, patience, perseverance, courage, enthusiasm and 
will-power, all of which were variously exemplified 
and were deemed important in winning success. 

The late Baron Rothschild, who sought to be of ser- 
vice in directing young men, made a statement of six- 
teen rules which he had printed on cards and distrib- 
uted to those whom he could influence. Among his 
rules were such as these: shun liquor; be polite to 
everybody; never tell business lies; maintain your in- 
tegrity as a sacred thing; and never appear to be 
more than you are. Many others who write out of 
rich experience and with mature conviction agree in 
the same general conclusion that the man who violates 
his moral conviction in business does what the athlete 
would do if he cut his sinews at the wrist. 

All this, it must needs be emphasized, is contrary to 
the too popular illusion that riches and honor are ex- 
clusive, that business men are required to select be- 
tween wealth and a good name. A young man lately 
expressed his conviction that in these days it is neces- 
sary to be a " specialist," that it is " no use trying to 
be a good churchman and a good business man." One 
lately voiced the same sentiment in a statement that 
he would not allow religion and business to interfere 
with each other. We are too prone to think that if a 
man is rich he must be a trickster or a villain and that 
there is virtue in poverty. But this is not a correct 
deduction from the great Book of moral teaching, nor 



A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 129 

is it in accordance with a fair observation of the world. 
In the book of Proverbs we read that the rewards of 
humility and the fear of Jehovah are riches, honor and 
long life; and in the same connection that thorns and 
snares are in the way of the perverse. 

Evidence is very clear that a good name is a neces- 
sity for sound business success. Among certain of the 
Indian tribes of North America a name was vested 
with high privilege and the right of bestowing it was 
enjoyed by the one to whom it belonged. " Under 
such circumstances," writes Professor Farrand, '' the 
name becomes true property and the regard for it is 
much more than a matter of sentiment." In one tribe 
a man who was not able to meet his financial obliga- 
tions was privileged to pawn his name at a rate of in- 
terest termed excessive, and during the term in which 
the name was in pawn its original holder was not per- 
mitted to use it in any way, and his social position was 
lowered. The name became the property of the 
holder, and his position was raised by the rank or 
worth of the name which had been pawned to him.^ 

Something very like the above exists in business, 
llie commercial world recognizes what is known as 
good-will. Succeeding businesses have long been con- 
ducted on established reputations, and from these 
reputations fortunes are often made; on the other 
hand, a bad reputation has in business the greatest of 
disadvantages. We all have feelings of confidence in 

^ Farrand, Basis of American History, 202, 203. 



130 A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 

the goods purchased from one dealer, and distrust for 
those secured from another, and we often pay consid- 
erably more for articles from a particular establish- 
ment, lest we be tricked by other dealers who may 
offer what are actually the same goods or better for 
less money. This is but paying for the good name 
which a commercial establishment has earned. Nor 
do we object to such a proceeding. We want to have 
full confidence in those with whom we have deal- 
ings, and we are quite ready fo pay for that confidence 

Though a good name may not be carried on the 
books of an establishment as a resource, the business 
man knows that this is a real commodity which can 
often be disposed of to advantage. Customers are not 
fools. If tricked once they are likely to go elsewhere, 
and thus they cease to be customers, and the business 
man who drives them away is the loser. Knavery 
cannot be permanently successful. Those who engage 
in business become shrewd students of human nature; 
the)^ early learn to scent danger, and draw inference 
with regard to character. 

Poor Richard declared, " Creditors have a better 
memory than debtors," and, similarly, the world *is 
ready to remember an irregularity in business and to 
treasure it against the one who practices it. The 
words defaulter and bankrupt follow, to his future 
hurt, the one who has been through these experiences. 
Indeed, a bad reputation in business is often too great 
a handicap to be overcome. What is true of the gen- 
eral reputation of a commercial house holds with re- 



A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 131 

gard to staple articles, and the purpose of the trade- 
mark, the reputation of which is so zealously guarded, 
is to serve as a guarantee for the goods on which it is 
placed. 

In the famous Black Friday panic of 1873 banks 
and business houses were everywhere closing their 
doors. The old and highly respected house of H. B. 
Claflin & Co., of New York, was found to be involved 
for more than twenty-five millions of dollars, and ruin 
was imminent. The head of the firm made a frank 
statement to his creditors and asked for a five months' 
extension of time. Knowing their man, the creditors 
granted the request, and inside of two months the firm 
was able to pay its obligations in full. Of the head of 
that firm, in the general wreck of fortunes, a recent 
writer has said that '' his personal character stood like 
a tower." 

Banking and credit operations as well as general 
merchandizing show the importance of fair dealing. 
The modern banking system and the general use of 
credit rest upon the assumption that men are honest, 
and banks are well defined as institutions that deal in 
credits. Indeed, so largely do we employ credit in 
modern trade that it is everywhere regarded as a com- 
modity and men reckon on it in all plans of merchan- 
dizing. Business men know that they cannot do busi- 
ness without meeting their obligations. Mr. David R. 
Forgan declares that the thing of first importance, 
which business men wish their employees to know, is 
that integrity of character is the greatest power of the 



132 A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 

business world. " The life of modern commerce/' he 
affirms, " is not gold, but credit, and quite ninety per 
cent of all business is now conducted on a credit basis." 

The modern credit system is complex, but credit- 
men agree that the most determining data which enter 
into the reaching of a decision in a doubtful case are 
those with regard to the character of the person asking 
credit. The modern building and loan association, 
which has had phenomenal success as a commercial in- 
stitution, has, to a considerable extent, made the good 
name of its members an element in its operations. 

Upright dealing is profitable, not only to the one 
practicing it, but it is of advantage to the society in 
which it is practiced. Failures of banks, corporations, 
private firms and individuals, with their damaging 
consequences, can only be avoided by cultivating a 
popular ideal of strict integrity, for in the end honesty 
alone can prevent fraud. 

Taking a broader view, we should see in business a 
social service, the giving of something for something. 
This is more true than is generally recognized, even by 
those who are engaged in business. Some years ago 
the writer was engaged in leading a class of about 
twenty business men, when the question of the motives 
for work came up; and several of the men stoutly 
maintained that their sole motive was to make money, 
and to enjoy the things that money could buy; but on 
discussion and after having the suggestion of chances 
to make more money in disreputable lines of business 
that would injure their fellows, these men promptly 
changed their statement of motive. 



A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 133 

In business the motto too often has been, as pointed 
out by Professor Jenks in a presidential address before 
the American Economic Association, ''to get the great- 
est possible reward for self in return for the least ser- 
vice." Governor Hughes, with rare insight, says that 
there is no greater evil at present than the desire to 
get something for nothing; in brief, " to get rich with- 
out earning the money." We shall all be ready to 
agree with Patterson DuBois that the creation of a 
sentiment of contempt for getting something for noth- 
ing would be a great gain. Professor Jenks would 
make the motto for business, " The largest service pos- 
sible for a just reward." Another presidential address 
before the same Association, by Professor Taussig, 
calls attention to the changing tendencies in the fol- 
lowing language : " The worship of wealth is dimin- 
ishing and the respect for public service is increasing. 
. . . The fundamental virtues are not lacking. We 
may hope for greater repression of the selfish motives 
and the sordid activities." 

There would be a great gain from the growth of the 
nbtion that business is the supplying of human needs — 
the furnishing of the food, clothing and shelter which 
make existence endurable and enjoyable. Business is 
not primarily the making of profits. Of course the 
laborer is worthy of his hire. If service is rendered, 
profits have been earned and should be enjoyed; but in 
the last analysis service should be the strongest motive 
appealing to the business man. 

The early and false theory of international trade 



134 A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 

was that nations were natural enemies, and that each 
was either giving or taking advantage. It was be- 
lieved that if one nation was the gainer in a transac- 
tion, this was at the expense of some other; but in 1 776 
Adam Smith declared a new economic policy, which 
was, in brief, that nations are mutually dependent, and 
that by the exchange of the services and the surplus 
products of one region for the services and surplus 
products of a different region there would be a gain in 
both ways. Thus foreign commerce became a process 
of giving '' value to superfluities." By slow degrees 
we are coming to see that commercial exchanges within 
a given country also are more than the taking or giv- 
ing of advantage, and that gains are not necessarily 
secured at the expense of some one else. 

Business is no exception to the law that men are to 
do justice and love mercy, and the second part of the 
injunction is not less important than the first. Keep- 
ing out of the clutches of the law is not enough. The 
world is such that business cannot thrive with the penal 
code substituted for the moral order. A conviction of 
usefulness should be the business man's spring of ac«- 
tion, and his richest recompense. Business should be 
followed for it own sake. If a given business is not 
one of the ways of making the world better and hap- 
pier it may well be forsaken. It is unfortunate indeed 
that any occupation should be pursued for money- 
getting alone. One who has made wide observation 
on the conduct of saloonkeepers from New York to 
Denver recently writes of them that their business has 



A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 135 

converted them into a type of man different from the 
trades people among whom they live. Saloonkeepers 
become " hard," " tough," '' sneering," and '' unsym- 
pathetic;" the so-called good-fellowship of saloons, it 
is said, is all on the surface and lasts only so long as 
there is prospect of a money return/ 

Dean Swift long ago indicated the Almighty's low 
regard for mere riches by pointing out the kind of 
people on whom they are so often bestowed. 

Business for gain only dwarfs men and unfits them 
for living. With the passing of years their love of 
gain will develop into avarice, which poisons the soul. 
Those who seek only the gains of business life have 
sometimes made money and retired, when they have 
become of all men the most miserable. He who selfishly 
pursues gains, is denied true pleasure both' in their 
pursuit and, if he is successful in his quest, in the sub- 
sequent possession of the thing obtained. 

Not only can there be cultivated a more correct 
notion as to the ends which business should seek to 
serve, but there can also be a much stronger sense of 
disapproval shown to those who pander to lower 
motives. Some one has well said that we need a 
standard of conduct by which a man will be branded 
a thief whether he steals a dollar, a hundred dollars 
or a million dollars, and whether he steals it as a per- 
son or by the agency of a corporation. 

In olden times, rogues, fraudulent bankrupts, and 

^ " What I Know About Saloons," The Independent, September 8, 
1908. 



136 A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 

the like, were put into the pillory provided for rascals, 
where often they were pelted with missiles. This 
treatment cannot be visited upon wrongdoers in our 
day, but they can in effect be made to suffer the con- 
demnation of public opinion, and the punishment in- 
flicted by public opinion may prove more efficacious 
than the punishment of law. In a recent agitation for 
municipal reform the influence that was of much effect 
was the attitude of the children in the schools toward 
the children of the offenders, and certain members of 
the city government felt, when their children came 
home with such inquiries as, " Is father a bad man?" 
" Why will not the children at school play with me 
any more?" ''What has my father been doing?" the 
time had come to change their course of conduct. 

We have many evidences of the application of the 
old moral order to this newer economic age. An 
American lately refused to sell his name to an insur- 
ance company for a handsome salar}^ and no duties, 
and very promptly declared that he could not consent 
to receive pay for services which he did not render. 
One well known recently departed this life with the 
rewards of long service and a good name, and he 
found in business to the very last an opportunity for 
practicing righteousness and a means of enriching the 
lives of his fellowmen. To a youth entering business 
he gave this high sentiment, which those who knew 
him would testifv he made the standard of his own 
life: 



A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 137 

Let thy high manhood sacred be, 

Then lift thy calling up to thee. 
Be true thyself and thou shalt find, 

An answering echo in thy kind. 
Keep thou thy faith with men, and see 

How men will keep their faith with thee. ^ 

The United States needs much emphasis of the old- 
fashioned Ten Commandment morality and an appli- 
cation of this to every-day affairs. As suggested by 
Governor (now Justice) Hughes, we are too prone to 
think that it is good Americanism to be '' slick " ; that 
business success is dependent on deception; and that 
political preferment follows manipulation and in- 
trigues. Hughes, whose career in a remarkable way is 
characterized by uncompromising honesty, makes the 
following call for the new-old commercialism : 

. Don't follow the man who thinks it is Amer- 
ican to be ' slick.' There may be many illustra- 
tions that will occur to you of cases of successful 
sharpness, but they are so exceptional as to prove 
the rule. The old way, the steady way, is the right 
way. Put a little more in the measure than you 
need to, give a good basketful of fruit, and don't 
simply have a little display on top of superficial 
attention and industry. Give a little more work 
than you are asked to give. That is the history of 
success in America. That is a lesson to boys, full 
measure, honorable effort, happiness and content- 
ment which only come to one who has the pride of 
being equal to his job. 

1 Henry S. Kent. 



138 A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 

Moral ideas in last analysis determine the strength 
and perpetuity of the social order. One law cannot be 
meted out to the individual and another to the firm 
and corporation. A new commercialism should regard 
business as a legitimate public service, not an act of 
plunder. As a public service, it is entitled to its re- 
wards, but it is not exempt from the operation of the 
Ten Commandments. A new commercialism should 
give us business men who put emphasis on duty, and 
who magnify the honor and privilege of their own 
calling. 

God give us men. A time like this demands 
Men whom the lust of office cannot kill ; 
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; 
Men who possess opinions and a will ; 
Men who have honor ; men who will not lie. 

The school, the pulpit, the press, and all other agen- 
cies that aid in fashioning public opinion should dis- 
seminate the doctrine that it pays to he honest. It 
goes without saying that this is not the sole, nor the 
highest motive for practicing honesty ; but we need to 
revise our standard. Honesty pays in life's asset of 
satisfaction; it pays in substantial permanent gain 
which is above any ephemeral success based on trick- 
ery. Mr. Lecky, in his History of European Morals, 
gives a striking confirmation of the truth here urged 
in a statement that the virtue of veracity has had its 
highest development among the commercial nations. 

Business men will be safer in their own lives, and 
more useful as members of society, with standards of 



A NEW COMMERCIALISM. 139 

conduct clearly defined, with issues drawn and conclu- 
sions reached. No doubt most of the too common 
commercial irregularity began accidentally, or impul- 
sively, and it is followed from wrong motives and 
without full regard for the consequences. Somehow a 
higher standard of conduct should be set before those 
now in commercial life, .and made a part of the train^ 
ing of those who are to enter business as a life calling. 
There are many ways in which these ends may be 
reached. 



. IX. 

Supervision of High Schools. 

High Schools supported at public expense came 
relatively late in our systems of public education, and 
even yet policies for their support and management 
are halting and uncertain. There is a widening con- 
viction of the wisdom of direct state aid to high schools 
and at least one serious and well-conceived attempt to 
extend such aid from the federal government. New 
phases of secondary education, and new perils to public 
high schools, are presented by the recent pronounced 
interest in technical education. The time is opportune 
for an examination of recent experience with high 
schools ; and also to indicate some apparent features of 
a safe policy for them in the future. 

High schools are, in the broadest sense, community 
institutions, '' people's colleges," or finishing schools 
for a large proportion of those who have any higher 
education at all. High schools need a breadth of view 
in policy, and a liberality of support, that cannot be 
expected from the local communities. In order that 
they may have the largest usefulness, the state should 
furnish matured plans for high schools, and it should 
show also how these plans can be carried out. One 
140 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 141 

very obvious way the state can aid these schools is by 
financial support extended through an authoritative 
department of supervision. 

A neglect of high schools means ultimate weakening 
of elementary education, a certain low standard in 
civic affairs, and inevitably the poor equipment of a 
people for the economic and industrial contests of the 
modern competitive system. That state will have the 
largest success which gives its people the fullest de- 
velopment of their native faculties, and the highest 
skill. States which have enjoyed marked advantages 
from their geographical position and native riches will 
find that these conditions alone count for relatively less 
and less as advantages. 

If a place in the field of material activity is to be 
acquired or maintained, a state must give to her people 
a constantly increasing educational equipment. To 
make natural riches effective, men must be trained to 
use them. From every consideration, increased and 
improved facilities for high school education seem im- 
perative. 

We should not accept any such miserable alternative 
as that between elementary schools and high schools. 
Rather let us accept nothing less than elementary 
schools amply provided and equipped, together with 
high schools broadly conceived and liberally sup- 
ported, free and within easy reach of every home, fur- 
nished not as a dole, not apologetically or grudgingly, 
but as the inherent right of every boy or girl born 
into an American commonwealth. 



142 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

High schools as distinct institutions, and supervision 
over high schools as a distinct educational function, 
have already demonstrated their worth as an aid to 
elementary schools. In New Jersey the state super- 
vision over high schools has required that eight years 
of approved work in graded schools or its equivalent 
must precede high school education, and the report of 
the State Superintendent of Public Education is that 
high school inspection has been of invaluable service to 
the work of the grades. Similar reports from Minne- 
sota, Wisconsin, New York and other states fully 
establish that a more efficient high school education is 
a means by which to improve elementary education. 

American states need some form of propaganda on 
high school education. The need is evident of taking 
to the people a message on the purposes of high 
schools, and both encouragement and instruction in 
their establishment and improvement. The schools of 
a given state should be rendered more uniform 
through standardizing and grading. High schools are 
widely different within many states and the poorer can 
be raised more nearly to the level of the better. Simi- 
larly, there can be the leveling-up of schools in differ- 
ent states as is now being undertaken between New 
York and New Jersey. But all this means new legis- 
lation, with increased state support and closer and 
more intelligent supervision. 

In the inspections of high schools in recent years we 
note four distinct forms of agency, operating at differ- 
ent times and places, and in different ways. These 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 143 

are : ( i ) The inspection of colleges and universities^ 
without legislative authority or the distribution of any 
funds; (2) the inspection by private associations of in- 
stitutions usually including both colleges and schools; 
(3) the inspection by some board created or author- 
ized by legislation; and (4) the inspection by state 
boards of education or departments of public instruc- 
tion either directly or acting through an agent or 
deputy. 

As in the Middle- West state-supported education 
has had its highest development, so from the Middle- 
West do we gain the most useful lessons on the super- 
vision over high schools. The first form of inspective 
agency should be termed institutional. This was begun 
by the University of Michigan in 1872 and has been 
practised by the University of Wisconsin for nearly or 
quite twenty years and by the University of Illinois 
for a dozen years. It has been adopted by the Uni- 
versities of Iowa, Nebraska, California, and some other 
institutions also. This form of inspection has been 
used chiefly by the state universities, but it has also 
been resorted to by certain private institutions, the 
most notable example of which is the University of 
Chicago. Private institutions have, however, usually 
been content to say that they will receive students 
from any school which is approved by state univer- 
sities. 

Institutional inspection as just described is entirely 
voluntary, and indeed only upon request on the part 
of a school. The purpose of such inspection is to 



144 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

accredit the schools for sending pupils to the higher 
institutions without examinations. At first the in- 
spection was by a committee of the faculty. The early 
practice in most institutions was to have a school ap- 
proved for given subjects by the department of in- 
struction in th.e higher institutions, and the certificates 
were for single subjects rather than for the school as a 
whole. The late United States Commissioner of Educa- 
tion, after observation of this form of inspection at the 
University of California, well says that there is a de- 
cided gain to the school from having university 
specialists regularly visit it. There was also an early 
proposal to resort to a form of examination at the 
University of Michigan, but this proved too cumber- 
some and was given up. Committees of the faculty 
soon found that the duties of inspection were too bur- 
densome and they employed an agent, reserving to 
themselves the right to pass upon his recommenda- 
tions. Thus the tendency of inspection by institutions 
has been to have a single inspector, and to have the 
school approved or rejected as a whole. 

While the purpose of this form of inspection is to 
make the schools feeders to the universities, the effects 
upon the schools themselves are worthy of note. The 
testimony where it has been tried is that the standards 
of the schools have been raised, in some cases a year 
and in others even more. Weak schools are some- 
times carried on what is called a '' nursing list," and 
are encouraged and improved in the hope that they 
may come up to the standard. The inspectors make 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 145 

addresses on educational subjects to the communities 
they visit, and after such visits they report to the prin- 
cipals, superintendents, and school boards, pointing 
out deficiencies in the schools and suggesting ways in 
which the deficiencies can be remedied/ Not the least 
of the services from such inspectors is the improvement 
of the teachers. Usually the inspectors are connected 
with the departments of education of their universities, 
and not infrequently they give instruction in the sum- 
mer schools which are conducted by these universities. 
Thus there is a direct appeal to teachers to improve 
their professional equipment. 

It should be pointed out, however, that the poorer 
and weaker schools which most need supervision are 
likely to be entirely ignored by this system, and fur- 
ther, that while, as President Eliot has said, '' an occa- 
sional friendly visit " by a college representative 
clearly is of service to the school, "such visits may be so 
infrequent and so indefinite as to lead to no important 
results." While recognizing the value of this volun- 
tary institutional inspection of high schools, we are 
compelled to say that it is but a beginning in a process 
and not the highest or best form of supervision over 
high schools. 

^ Prof. A. S. Whitney, who has been actively connected with the 
work of inspecting and accrediting high schools at the University 
of Michigan, writes : " Volumes might be written giving specific ac- 
counts of the opinion of the Inspector on the local high school. So 
much so that our correspondence with the superintendents seeking 
the aid of the high school inspector in influencing his board of edu- 
cation to take advanced steps along educational lines is extensive." 



146 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

The second of the agencies above mentioned for 
standardizing and improving high schools is volun- 
tary associations either of higher institutions or of 
higher institutions and secondary schools jointly. This 
form of inspection is the application of the cooperative 
principle among institutions, and is extended through- 
out a region or a section rather than being limited to a 
single state. The two most notable instances of this 
inspection are that of the New England College En- 
trance Certificate Board and that of the North Central 
Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. 

The New England Board began about 1885 to pro- 
vide uniform examinations for admission to college in 
the cases where the requirements were similar. Out 
of this there came a demand for uniform certificates 
for college admission and from the latter the practice 
of approving the schools as a whole. The institutions 
that received students on certificate finally reached an 
agreement that a Central Board should be established 
and that certificates would be recognized only from 
schools that this Board approved. This Board has 
carried forward its supervision since 1 904; it has 
worked by correspondence, by inspection of curricula, 
by securing of careful reports from the schools and by 
occasional visits of representatives of the Board; but 
most largely the Board acts from reports of the col- 
leges on the standing of pupils sent from schools wish- 
ing to be accredited, or which have been accredited. 
The president of this New England Board said that 
reports show that only one-third as many schools send- 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 147 

ing students on certificate are unsatisfactory now as 
there were before the Board began its supervision. 
He is very clear on the facts presented that the schools 
have been imj^roved, increased value given to the cer- 
tificates, and a closer articulation established between 
schools and colleges/ 

The North Central Association of Schools and Col- 
leges was organized in 1895 ^^ secure cooperation and 
to promote harmonious relations between the types of 
institutions that make up its membership. Growing 
out of this purpose a Commission on Accredited 
Schools was provided for in 1901, and to this Com- 
mission was assigned the duty of defining and describ- 
ing standards for college admission, formulating a 
statement of approved preparation for high school 
teachers, recommending equipment for high schools, 
and finally providing for a Board of Inspectors who 
shall inquire into the conditions in the schools and 
make up an accredited list. These inspectors meet in 
Chicago two or three days before the meeting of the 
North Central Association. At this meeting they 
compare their observations and revise the list of ac- 
credited schools. Their report is made to the Com- 
mission and the Commission reports to the Association. 
The report is printed for circulation and it is distrib- 
uted on or before April first annually. 

The Commission on Accredited Schools has defined 

1 Professor John K. Lord, of Dartmouth, before the Middle 
States and Maryland Association of Colleges and Preparatory 
Schools, 1907. 



148 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

carefully the conditions on which schools will be ac- 
credited, and it has rendered service in suggesting 
laboratory and library equipment, plans of instruction, 
etc. It provides that no high school will be approved 
that does not have at least five teachers exclusive of the 
superintendent; it fixes the maximum of pupils per 
teacher as thirty, and requires excellence of intellectual 
and moral " tone " in a school as a condition of its 
being approved. 

The Commission of the North Central Association 
publishes a list of approved schools in at least a dozen 
states, from Ohio to Colorado. The activity of this 
Commission marks a tendency away from independent 
inspection by a single institution, and this form of 
supervision clearly seems more desirable than that of 
higher institutions acting on their own responsibility, 
but this inspection still leaves something to be desired. 
The Association is too far removed from the schools 
and with too little opportunity to aid them. The Com- 
mission recognizes its difficulties and seeks to mini- 
mize them, by providing that reports shall be made 
through an inspector appointed by a state university 
or an inspector appointed by state authority, and thus 
there is evidenced the need of other agencies to operate 
in connection with this Association. 

The third form of agency already tried is the in- 
spection by some legally established board or its repre- 
sentatives. This is well illustrated in Indiana and 
Minnesota. In Indiana the inspection is by a board 
consisting of the State Superintendent of Public In- 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 149 

struction, the President of the State University, the 
President of the State Normal School, and certain 
superintendents and principals of schools in various 
parts of the State. This Board, by division of high 
schools among its members, inspects the schools of the 
State and prepares an accredited list giving the privi- 
lege of certificate for college admission. 

Taken altogether, Minnesota has made marked prog- 
ress in improving the high schools of the State. In 
Minnesota there is a State High School Board consist- 
ing of five members— the Superintendent of Public In- 
struction, the President of the State University, the 
President of the Normal School Board, and two other 
persons appointed by the Governor. This Board elects 
a State Inspector or Superintendent over high schools 
and his office is supported by special appropriation. 
His reports on high schools are recognized by the 
University of Minnesota and other institutions in 
granting the certificate privilege for college admission. 
Thus the Inspector, while not an officer of the Univer- 
sity, is appointed by a Board on which the University 
is represented, and the University seems entirely satis- 
fied to accept students on his report. 

To give further stimulus to high school education in 
Minnesota there is awarded from the state treasury a 
yearly grant not to exceed $1,500 to schools that are 
approved by the inspector. In 1907 there was an ad- 
ditional grant making the total above $2,000 for each, 
school. In 1908 the amount awarded was $1,500, but 
immediately following this the Minnesota Legislature 



150 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

increased the aid to $1,750 for all accredited schools. 
The High School Inspector for Minnesota says that the 
Board of which he is the agent has three forms of aid 
operating together — inspection, financial support, and 
examinations. The inspector is in a purely advisory 
capacity, but the financial aid is made to depend on the 
conditions found by the inspector. The examinations 
are optional, and are meant to be merely suggestive 
and directive. Both the Inspector of High Schools 
and the State Superintendent of Minnesota say that 
these optional examinations have been of marked ser- 
vice in improving the poorer schools. 

A State Superintendent of Minnesota thus summar- 
ized the results of state supervision and direct state 
aid : '' The high and graded school inspectors have 
rendered the state valuable service not only in guard- 
ing the distribution of the aid, but in creating a 
stronger school sentiment, making helpful suggestions 
to superintendents and teachers and in encouraging 
and stimulating school officers. Seeing the best equip- 
ment, management and instruction, these officials are 
in a position to offer officers and teachers the benefit of 
criticism, timely, restraining, and suggestive. Vested 
with state authority, they often give progressive super- 
intendents, teachers and school officers needed moral 
support in communities where a too conservative 
opinion prevails. State inspection has been a directing 
force in the more judicious and economical expendi- 
ture of public funds for the construction of school- 
houges, in the employment of trained and competent 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 151 

superintendents and teachers, in the efforts toward the 
unification of the courses of study, and the establish- 
ment of a more permanent policy in educational move- 
ments, which, if left unguided, will result in more or 
less misspent energy. 

'' Under our system each high school and graded 
school of Minnesota has been left free to work out its 
own plans, while, at the same time, we have in the 
entire scheme such unity and harmony and definite 
standard of efficiency as would not have been possible 
without this unifying and directing influence. And 
are not the teachers and officers of the county even 
more in need of criticism, advice and moral support of 
able inspectors than are those in towns and cities, with 
their greater wealth and culture, and their greater 
opportunities and facilities ?" ^ 

One obvious service to the high schools of Minne- 
sota, and to any school that comes into the possession 
of them, is that rendered by annual reports of George 
B. Alton as Inspector of High Schools. Every phase 
of the building problem — ventilation, equipment, lab- 
oratories, libraries, text-books and teachers — these and 
many other subjects have been examined and sane con- 
clusions reached. That communities realize so little 
from their money in school buildings and school ser- 
vice is due largely to inexperience or ignorance. 
Those having to do with local schools need to be given 
direction by one who has a broader outlook, and it is 

i . 1 Animal Report, 1997, pp. 9, 10, 



152 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

in the giving of this direction that a state inspector of 
high schools can be of great service.^ 

The most recent trend in the outside supervision 
over high schools is by state departments of educa- 
tion, or superintendents of public instruction, usually 
through deputies or agents. At least eight states are 
now carrying forward this form of supervision, and in 
most cases it is attended by the distribution of money 
from the state treasuries. 

In Massachusetts each town is required to provide 
free high-school education for each child who wishes 
it. Every town of five hundred families must furnish 
a high school with a four-year course and keep this 
school open for at least forty weeks in a year. A town 
of less than five hundred inhabitants may maintain a 
school of its own, or provide for the tuition of its 
pupils and their transportation to some other school. 
The experiment of having students transported to 
other schools at public expense has likely been given 
its best trial in Massachusetts, but with results that do 
not seem conclusive as to the desirability of this method 
of fostering high school education. The smaller towns 
maintaining an approved high school are reimbursed 
by the state to the amount of $500. If they do not 

^ The influence of the Minnesota Plan is far-reaching. Prof. Whit- 
ney, of the University of Michigan, writes : " A bill has already been 
prepared for introduction into our legislature to correct this defect 
[i. e., of not reaching the poorer schools], by the adoption of a plan 
somewhat similar to the one now in operation in Minnesota. Should 
the proposed bill be passed we believe the system will be very much 
improved." 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 153 

maintain a school they are reimbursed for the tuition 
money paid out. In 19 10 there were paid to the small 
towns of Massachusetts under these two heads %6^ ~ 
009.03. ^' 

But in order to receive state aid Massachusetts high 
schools must be approved by an agent of the State 
Board who is in the field exercising the functions of 
an mspector. The same agent approves high schools 
for the privilege of certificating their pupils to the 
state normal schools. 

New York has long had close supervision over high 
schools through the Regents' inspection and examina- 
tions. The legislation that consolidated the Regent 
system and the State Department of Education in New 
York in no particular relinquished control over high 
schools. Indeed the tendency was in the other direc- 
tion. The number of inspectors was increased, and 
state aid has been extended munificently in New York. 
In 1907 the State of New York gave to her high 
schools in direct grants approximately $550,000. This 
amount has been materially increased in later years. 
Much has been done to remove the mechanical and de- 
pressing effects of the old Regents' system. No doubt 
examinations in New York, as in Minnesota, are a 
stimulus to the weaker schools, but the grave danger 
IS that they will become a fetich. The establishment 
m 1906 of an examination board through which there 
IS appointed a series of committees to prepare question 
papers is a decided forward step, but if one from out- 
side the State might venture a comment on the New 



154 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

York plan of supervision it would be that it seems de- 
sirable to escape still further from the evils of the old 
Regents' system by bringing about greater flexibility 
through a larger recognition of the optional principle 
in taking examinations/ 

New Jersey has recently begun a close state super- 
vision over her high schools. A special appropriation 
was secured with the power to administer it left to the 
State Board of Education. A High School Inspector 
has been appointed and is at work under the direction 
of the State Board. In this State, as in Pennsylvania 
and Louisiana, which also have lately inaugurated 
state inspection of high school's, the function is dis- 
charged by exercise of general powers and is not due 
to special legislation. 

In New Jersey schools apply to be registered, and 
after they are visited by the Inspector they are re- 
ported to the State Board of Education for such action 
as the Board may care to take. High schools of a re- 
quired standard and with a four-year course are 
termed '' approved " ; high schools with a one-year, 
two-year or three-year course, and meeting a fixed 
standard, are recognized as " partial." For each 
teacher employed exclusively in an approved high 

^ The Second Commissioner of Education in New York writes 
(1911) as follows: "In my opinion we have now practically escaped 
from the evils of the examination system while still retaining the 
benefits. As you will see, the whole thing is optional. No student is 
required to pass Regents examinations in order to graduate from a 
high school unless local school authorities wish to make that the rule. 
The option with the local aiithgrities is unlimited," 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 155 

school there is awarded from the state treasury four 
hundred dollars, and for each teacher giving full time 
to instruction in a partial high school with a three-year 
course there is similarly allowed three hundred dollars. 
In 191 1 there were in New Jersey 114 approved four- 
year high schools and 50 partial high schools. 

The Inspector of High Schools in New Jersey makes 
it a rule to meet with boards of education and teachers 
in regular and special sessions and to advise with them 
and make suggestions on various aspects of high school 
work. Not the least of the services of the Inspector is 
his supervision over the preparation of plans of study 
and outlines for particular subjects. In these activi- 
ties the Inspector cooperates with the high school 
teachers of the State in a voluntary and non-official 
capacity. 

With regard to the nondescript character of her 
high schools there was in the state of Missouri a few 
years ago a condition not unlike that in many other 
states, and to bring some sort of order into the high 
school system the State Superintendent was given 
authority to grade all public high schools, designating 
them as of the first, second, and third class. This 
authority was extended with the proviso that no 
school was to be in the first class that did not employ 
the full time of three teachers in high school work and 
give what was termed " standard " instruction during 
nine months of the year for four years, in English, 
mathematics, science and history. Schools of the sec- 
ond class were to be similarly conducted for three 



156 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

years with the full time of two approved teachers, and 
were to give instructions in accordance with the condi- 
tions fixed for schools of the first class. Schools of the 
third class were required to give two years of satisfac- 
tory instruction in the subjects above named for at 
least eight months of the year and to require the full 
time of one approved teacher in high school work. 

The foregoing provisions were to be carried out by 
the State Superintendent of Education in Missouri who 
might exercise the function of inspection himself or 
delegate it to a deputy. The law requires that the 
State Superintendent publish from time to time lists 
of classified schools. To give further effect to inspec- 
tion in Missouri, the Superintendent is given full 
authority to drop a school in its classification if the 
required standard and quality of work are not main- 
tained. 

The State Superintendent of Missouri reported 
early in 1908 that he had not been able satisfactorily 
to carry out the law of 1903 because of lack of assist- 
ants, but further that the Legislature of 1907 had 
made a sufficient appropriation to employ two deputies 
for school supervision, one for high schools and one 
for rural schools, and that these were to be secured at 
once and put into the field as inspectors. But even as 
administered the state law in Missouri had had a help- 
ful influence. The State Superintendent reported that 
the number graduating from high schools had doubled 
in four years and the number enrolled had trebled in 
ten years. It was the expressed intention of the 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 157 

educational authorities in Missouri to give full effect 
to the act of 1903 in furnishing an efficient system of 
high schools for the state; but in Missouri there is a 
clear recognition of the weakness of any plan that does 
not include direct state aid to the high schools from 
the state, and an agitation looking to such aid has been 
carried on for several years. A bill for extending 
direct state aid was before the Legislature in 191 1, and 
seemed reasonably certain of being enacted into a law. 
In Wisconsin the State Superintendent chooses an 
Inspector of High Schools, and the Inspector works 
under the direction of the State Superintendent. The 
State Department of Education prepares suggestive 
courses of study and approves all such courses pre- 
pared by others. The qualifications of teachers are 
determined by this department. In Wisconsin, local 
communities which support a high school in accord- 
ance with the state requirements are given aid by the 
state as follows: Schools expending above $1,000 a 
year for instruction receive an amount not exceeding 
$500, and the schools expending less than $1,000 for 
instruction receive from the state pro rata one-half of 
the amount expended. In cases where town high 
schools or union high schools are maintained, schools 
having two teachers may receive one-half the sum paid 
for instruction but not to exceed $900 annually; so 
with three teachers, but not to exceed $1,200; and 
correspondingly with four or more teachers one-half 
of the sum expended for instruction purposes, but not 
to exceed $1,500. 



158 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

Reports on inspection of high schools in Wisconsin 
are made to the State Superintendent of Public In- 
struction and to the University, but the University 
sends out its own inspectors to riiake up a list of accred- 
ited schools. There has been some slight friction in 
Wisconsin between the inspectors of the State Depart- 
ment and the University, and a growing demand on 
the part of those who would expand and perfect the 
state inspection that the University should take on 
trial at least all the graduates of accredited four-year 
state-supported high schools, and later drop those stu- 
dents who could not meet the requirements of advanced 
work. This is the present practice when pupils of 
accredited schools do not meet the requirements of the 
University. The suggestion here made has greater 
validity when one remembers that the Middle- West 
universities are a part of the public education systems 
of their states. 

The duties of a state inspector of high schools, if 
well performed, might relieve the higher institutions 
of the necessity of sending out their inspectors; but 
from the standpoint of the higher institutions one can 
see that they may properly wish some control over 
these schools which send students to them. 

Pennsylvania is one of the latest states to take a dis- 
tinctively forward step in supervising her high schools. 
By the legislation of 1895 provision was made for a 
gradation of the high schools into first class, second 
class, and third class, and providing a standard cur- 
riculum and general requirements for the schools of 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 159 

each grade. At first a slender state appropriation of 
$25,000 a year was extended to township high schools. 
The plan of distribution has been to allow $400 to a 
school of the third grade, $600 to one of the second 
and $800 to one of the first; and in the event that 
there was not an amount sufficient to allow these sums, 
to distribute the sum available among the schools pro- 
rata. This appropriation was found to work well, and 
it was gradually increased until, in 1907, $275,000 
was set aside for the township schools for two years 
and a like amount for borough schools. This appro- 
priation thus provided for 1908 and 1909 $275,000 
annually to the high schools of townships and bor- 
oughs. The legislation of 1909 continued for the next 
two years the amounts just mentioned, and coupled 
with the appropriation an act for the better grading 
of high schools. 

With the distribution of this increased appropria- 
tion in Pennsylvania there was the necessity for a 
closer supervision over high schools, and the Legisla- 
ture of 1907 also passed an act appropriating money 
for two high-school inspectors. These inspectors were 
appointed as deputies in the Department of Public In- 
struction, and although they have been in service but a 
f€w years they have been welcomed by the best school 
interests of the State. One of the Pennsylvania in- 
spectors writing from the field said : " Many of the 
schools already receiving appropriation do not have 
teachers that fully satisfy the requirements of the law 
of 1895, ^nd the equipment is often very meagre. We 



160 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

will doubtless have to publish a circular that will sug- 
gest some suitable lists of apparatus, also a somewhat 
detailed course in English, and further define what 
constitutes a year's work in several of the other sub- 
jects in the suggested course." 

The other Pennsylvania inspector, after some months 
in the field, wrote his impressions : Recitations are too 
short; instruction lacks in thoroughness and definite- 
ness; there are unbalanced courses of study, with the 
need of a syllabus to state the minimum requirement in 
each subject; and a need for a more definite standard 
of admission to high schools. Immediately following 
these statements the Pennsylvania inspectors issued a 
Manual which cannot fail' to be of great value. 

Certain conclusions are pointed by the foregoing 
pages. Direct financial aid to high schools is much 
to be desired, and it is the most effective means of 
extending the influence of state supervision. Under 
competent direction a grant from the state treasury 
may be made to secure increased local appropriation. 
*The operation of federal appropriations to agricul- 
tural and mechanical colleges in the ten years from 1896 
to 1906 is significant. The moderate grants from the 
general government have led to increases in a much 
greater ratio by the states. In 1896 these institutions 
the country over received from the federal treasury 
twenty-nine per cent of their funds; in 1 906 they re- 
ceived but fifteen and four-tenths per cent. In 1896 
twenty-five of the agricultural and mechanical colleges 
received more than one-half of their support from the 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 161 

general government; in 1906 only fifteen so received 
a corresponding amount. 

The grant of more than half a million from the state 
treasury m New York in 1907 was accompanied by the 
expenditure for secondary schools of above eight 
millions m the state at large. Many communities are 
too small or too poor to tax themselves sufficiently for 
the support of satisfactory high schools, and yet these 
communities should have high schools. It is manifestly 
the duty of the wealthier communities to aid the 
poorer for the welfare of the state. 

And there is another phase of this question. Human 
nature is such that many communities which would 
not levy taxes directly for a high school will pay 
money into the treasury of the state and draw it 
back as a bonus. Particularly is a grant from the 
state treasury defensible when it is made to depend on 
the contribution by the local community of an amount 
equal at least to the amount of the state grant Thus 
local interest is retained, and the community is saved 
from parsimony. Aid from the state should be as a 
stimulus, and not as a means of pauperizing 

The power to withhold state aid can be made a most 
effective method of acccomplishing reforms in the 
schools. This IS illustrated in every state where such 
aid has been tried. Inspectors of high schools in 
states where grants are extended say that they would 
be impotent to effect results without it. Inspectors 
where such aid is not granted clearly recognize its 
desirability. 



162 SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 

A standardizing of the high schools through com- 
petent state supervision will go far towards settling 
once and for all the threadbare question of college 
admission. Germany has for us a significant lesson 
under this head. There, a leaving certificate is an 
ample guarantee of the fitness of the one possessing it 
to continue his studies at higher institutions, but Ger- 
many has liberal government aid and close supervision, 
the latter extended both to public and private schools. 
If schools with us were what their names signify, 
higher institutions could take their graduates without 
further question. State inspection should have the 
power to make a school and the name it uses corres- 
pond. 

An inspector of high schools should not be simply 
an amiable gentleman, who goes about " patting people 
on their backs ", fearful lest he '' make a ripple or leave 
a wake ". He should be able to say and do even un- 
pleasant things in kindness and helpfulness. The 
dignity of his office makes it possible for the high 
school inspector to strengthen and elevate the educa- 
tional sentiment of the communities to which he goes. 
He can stimulate and direct the less competent teach- 
ers, principals and superintendents, and can back up 
and render more efficient the better teachers, principals 
and superintendents. The inspector can also g*ive 
valuable aid in suggestions for the construction and 
equipment of buildings, the outlining of courses of 
study, and the preparation of plans of instruction, the 
selection of text-books, reference libraries, and in 



SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS. 163 

many other ways. In brief, whenever tried, state 
inspection of high schools has returned many fold its 
cost in economies and improved conditions. The 
movement has just begun, but it is safe to predict that 
an enlargement and perfection of state supervision 
over high schools will be an important educational 
development of the next decade. 



X. 

Old Age Pensions. 

Among our Aryan forefathers the means of subsist- 
ence were owned by the tribe, and they were given to 
an individual only so long as he could render service. 
If one were no longer able to make his contribu- 
tion to the common store he was either denied food and 
left to starve, or he was put to death, to save a worse 
fate. With certain other primitive tribes the one no 
longer able to care for himself was brought befare the 
council and adjudged as ready for death, after which 
he is said to have cheerfully submitted to execution as 
a part of the law of life. Later in their history the 
Romans learned the worth of their elders in council 
and they nurtured and protected their old men, but 
even in Rome there was the survival of an earlier 
custom 'of sacrificing the aged as evidenced in the 
ceremony of the argei and by the term seizes depontani 
signifying the sacrifice of the aged, which was offered 
as a tribute to the river god.^ Certain Northern tribes 
are reputed still to expose those too feeble to hunt or 
labor to die of cold and starvation. 

1 Ihering, Evolution of the Aryan, 332, 333 and 356. 
164 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 165 

The present is a time particularly noted in its demand 
for young men. Formerly those past middle life were 
better equipped. Didactic instruction and experience 
were assimilated slower than at present, and of neces- 
sity one was on in years before he matured. But 
now school training furnishes more adequate prelimi- 
nary preparation for work than once was given ; years 
of apprenticeship or indifferent performance are elim- 
inated, and the worker early becomes a master where 
before he remained a novice. Moreover, present 
requirements are for a different sort of man. This 
is the era of the telephone, the telegraph and quick 
transportation. Alertness of mind is demanded in 
every field of activity ; instantaneous decisions must be 
made, and success depends upon making these right. 
An earlier era required conservatism of action for 
which old men were best suited; the present demands 
freedom from tradition and promptness of action for 
which the spirit of young men is best suited. 

One can readily satisfy himself of the prejudice 
against old men by observing the employing depart- 
ment of almost any large concern, or better yet by 
getting the experience of one above forty who is seek- 
ing employment. It is believed that men who have 
turned fifty are in danger of beginning to look back 
with pride on what they have accomplished, while 
what is most desired is men who will look forward 
with hope to future opportunity. The late William 
H. Baldwin, Jr., who was noted for his successful deal- 
ing with men and for his fair treatment of those under 



166 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

him, declared it as his rule to mark a man for dismissal 
from his employ, when he found that there was a 
change from a forward to a backward look. 

Some railroads and other corporations have made 
a rule not to take a man above thirty-five or forty, — 
at least not unless a director or some one high in 
authority approves. Such a rule may seem absurd, 
but we are challenged by the fact that it has been 
made, or while not made it is followed in effect. Men 
of advancing years have again and again been driven 
to suicide because they would not become dependents, 
and there was nothing for them to do. 

Those above forty who seek employment must pos- 
sess unusual talents, or their talents go a-begging. 
" Give us young men," is heard alike in the demands 
of the pulpit, the bar, the professorial chair, and the 
counting-house. Recent practices are so pronounced 
in the demand for young men as to present a problem 
of what to do with the superannuated. In an age 
when the spirit of benevolence is operating with in- 
creased effect the aged can neither be summarily 
dispatched, nor abandoned to die of want. The cus- 
tom of primitive people of putting the aged to death 
has this in its favor : helpless and dependent men were 
not allowed to languish and die of neglect. The 
neglect of the incapacitated might seem more necessary 
in a warlike state of society, when fighting and migra- 
tion were the requirements for existence, but with a 
settled condition of life and the accumulation of wealth 
society is better able to care for the infirm. Under 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 167 

the conditions of earlier civilizations the rule may have 
been, " the strong shall consume the weak," but under 
present conditions the rule can and should be, '* the 
strong shall care for the weak." 

The fact that by the modern high-pressure produc- 
tion the workers are early incapacitated, and more 
largely so in America than in any other country, lends 
special significance to a discussion of this question.. A 
late statement of the English Premier goes to the ef- 
fect that, '' the blood of the workmen is part of the cost 
of the product." It is his belief that the product 
should pay for the care of those who have produced it. 
And under the modern economic system old age is that 
period of life between the cessation of useful produc- 
tive work and death. 

Some would make the whole question a simple one 
by saying that the care for the aged is not a matter of 
any concern to any one except the aged themselves, 
that the responsibility is individual and that each one 
must make provision for his own retirement or 
incapacity or suffer the consequences. But society does 
not abandon its members to their individual destruc- 
tion in other realms of its activity; why should it 
neglect them here? 

The argument mentioned in the preceding para- 
graph presupposes that the workers in all callings 
have a fair wage, adequate to care for them during 
their whole lives. An adequate wage is, then, one 
sufficient to provide for daily necessity and to lay by a 
store sufficient to meet the contingencies of accident. 



168 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

sickness and age. Now as a matter of fact, the daily 
wage is in many, or in most cases, only enough to pro- 
vide for daily necessities, and no store is laid by for 
the need that is sure to come. One writer character- 
izes industry as "drinking the wine of the wage- 
earner's life," and leaving the "dregs to him or to 
society." It is a gloomy scene which Bishop Spaul- 
ding depicts of the multitude of old men and women 
who, having worn out health and strength in toil 
which barely gave them food and raiment, are thrust 
aside because " no longer fit to be bought and sold." ^ 

It does not meet the issue to say that the chil- 
dren of the aged should be made responsible. Many 
have no children ; some children wall not, or cannot, 
accept the extra burden of their parents' old age ; and 
granting that the children do accept and carry the 
extra load, they are thereby prevented from making 
adequate provision for themselves, and thus the help- 
lessness of the aged would be handed on and increased 
from generation to generation. 

The largest gain from a system of old-age insur- 
ance lies in the consciousness that the community has 
done justice to those who are fairly claimants of its 
favor. The German Professor Wagner holds that the 
selfish social interests should not blind those who are 
to deal with this question, so that the merits of the case 
may not be considered from the highest grounds of gen- 
eral social welfare. Old-age relief should be regarded 

1 Education and the Higher Life, i8- 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 169 

as a payment of a just obligation of society and not 
as a dole. State aid for free schools, and the services 
of the government for social well-being are justified 
from considerations of public good. So the State's 
relief for the incapacitated and the helpless is a means 
of promoting the general welfare of society. 

True, some have seen in any movement for old-age 
relief the most objectionable aspects of state socialism. 
Says William H. Lecky : "I can hardly conceive of 
anything more certain to discourage thrift and sap the 
robust qualities of the English people than that the 
belief should grow up among the whole working popu- 
lation that they should look forward to the State and 
not to their own exertions to support them in their 
old age." 

But the fears of the extreme individualists are 
groundless. Here, as elsewhere, wise governmental 
cooperation with individual effort can be a means of 
stimulating and directing individual effort. It is too 
much to ask the individual, under present conditions, 
to make full provision for his old age, but he can and 
will cooperate with the State, and do vastly more than 
he could do alone, and the State can act with him 
directing and supplementing his efforts. The aim 
should be to prevent pauperism and to provide de- 
cently for the helpless period in the lives of those who 
have done society's work. Already it looks as though 
the dream of yesterday were the realization of to-day. 
Non-contributary plans of old-age relief by the State 
in some countries, cooperative- schemes between the 



170 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

government and the beneficiaries in others, and benev- 
olent and private enterprises in still others, are all 
different ways in which society is paying the obligation 
which it owes to the aged. 

Germany was the first nation to deal with the ques- 
tion of old-age relief in any advanced way. Volun- 
tary societies for the care of the aged had long ex- 
isted in Germany, but the earliest law looking to this 
end was enacted in 1889, and this was supplemented 
in 1 89 1, and reenacted in a more complete form in 
1899. The present German enactment is said to be the 
direct result of a socialistic agitation dating back to 
1863. Bismarck sought to strengthen the government 
by adopting a program of social reform in the interests 
of the working classes. First a sickness-insurance law 
was passed in 1883 ; this was extended to accident in- 
surance in 1884, and was extended into the first old- 
age and invalidity act in 1889. The present German 
law is thus made to extend to cases of accident and 
invalidity as well as old age. 

The German plan will be considered at some length 
because of what are believed to be its many admirable 
features, and also because of the influence it has had 
in shaping the policies of other countries. In the Ger- 
man scheme contributions are by the government, the 
insured and the employers. The German government 
is admirably adapted for the enforcement of insurance 
provisions, and the arrangement of local administra- 
tion has worked most satisfactorily. The mutual pro- 
visions of the arrangement between employers and 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 171 

employed, and the sense of independence among the 
workmen themselves are results worthy of note. Not 
the least important effect of the German plan is the 
moral effect upon the working classes and upon society 
in general. Class antagonisms are said to have been 
lessened in Germany as a result of these insurance 
provisions, and there has grown instead a sense of one- 
ness of all classes, or social solidarity. No doubt the 
cooperative features of the German laws and the 
mutual advantages resulting from their administration 
have contributed to the results mentioned. 

Certain classes are required to be insured under the 
German old-age law whether they wish to do so or 
not. These classes are briefly, first, those employed as 
laborers, journeymen, assistants, apprentices, and do- 
mestic servants receiving wages or salary ; second, 
those employed as foremen and technical workers, 
clerks and business apprentices, employees whose ser- 
vice forms their chief means of income (such as teach- 
ers) and all persons receiving a yearly wage or salary 
of $500.00 or less ; and third, all persons employed on 
German ships whose yearly salary is $500.00 or less. 

In addition to the classes above mentioned other 
classes are given the privilege of entering into the 
German insurance agreement if they so wish. Volun- 
tary old-age insurance is thus permitted to superin- 
tendents, foremen, business assistants, teachers, and 
ship captains whose yearly salary is between $500 
and $750; also to traders and manufacturers who do 
not employ more than two workmen subject to insur- 



172 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

ance ; also to all persons who are engaged in the home 
industries and are not subject to the insurance obliga- 
tions, and those who receive only board and lodging 
for their labor, or who are exempt from insurance be- 
cause they are employed only temporarily. 

The compulsory feature begins with the sixteenth 
year of age, and an old-age pension is granted at the 
completion of the seventieth year without proof of 
disability. To receive an old-age pension one must 
have paid a weekly contribution for twelve hundred 
weeks. 

The cost in Germany is borne by the State, the em- 
ployers and the employed. The Empire contributes to 
each annuity eleven dollars and ninety cents per year. 
The government also maintains the Imperial Insur- 
ance Department, and provides for the payment of the 
annuities through the postoffice. The German old-age 
law is under direction of the Central Imperial Insur- 
ance Department, which has thirty-one local insurance 
offices, each in one of the insurance districts into which 
Germany has been divided. Acting in conjunction 
with the thirty-one local insurance offices are special 
pension offices for the smaller political units. Each 
local office has in connection with its work a board of 
arbitration, consisting of a president, a vice-president, 
and two representatives each of the employers and the 
employed. Appeals may be taken from these boards 
to the Central Imperial Insurance Department. 

A German employer is held for the insuring of all 
his employees, and he is authorized to deduct the 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 173 

workman's share of the premiums from his wage. 
The method of payment and receipt is simple ; the em- 
ployer purchases insurance stamps from a local office, 
and these he attaches to a receipt card carried by the 
insured. The pension is made up of two parts, the 
fixed sum of eleven dollars and ninety cents ($11.90) 
granted to all classes of pensioners, and an additional 
amount made up by contribution of equal parts by 
employers and employees. The supplementary part is 
determined by a classification into groups according to 
the raj;e of wages. There are five wage classes with 
weekly premiums and total annuities as follows : First, 
those with a yearly wage of less than $87.50, weekly 
premium 3^ cents, annuity $27.50; second, those with 
a yearly wage between $87.50 and $137.50, w^eekly 
premium 5 cents, annuity $35.00; third, those with a 
yearly wage between $137.50 and $212.50, weekly 
premium 6 cents, annuity $42.50; fourth, those with a 
yearly wage between $212.50 and $287.50, weekly 
premium 7j4 cents, annuity $50.00; and fifth, those 
with a yearly wage above $287.50, weekly premium 9 
cents, annuity $57.50. 

With a population of sixty millions, Germany re- 
ported a total insurance of fourteen millions. Thus it 
would appear that nearly one-fourth the people in 
Germany are insured under the old-age law. At the 
same time there was in Germany an annuity roll of 
110,969, which is probably much lower than may be 
expected after the system has been in operation a suffi- 
cient length of time to give all the insured the benefits 



174 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

of the provisions. For the year 1906 the receipts from 
all sources were $53,810,000, and of this amount the 
Imperial Government contributed^ $11,985,000, and 
the employers and the employed each $20,912,500. 

France has a plan of old-age relief similar to that 
found in Germany. As early as 1850 the French gov- 
ernment established a number of saving banks to stim- 
ulate thrift among the working classes. At a given 
age and after the payment of a required sum these 
banks paid annuities to depositors. But a new act for 
state aid to the aged and incapacitated was passed in 
1905, and went into effect in 1907. Relief is extended 
to those above seventy years of age who are incapaci- 
tated and to those under seventy who are suffering 
from an incurable disease. The aid is not less than 
twelve dollars nor more than forty-eight dollars a 
year. The burden for this relief is mainly upon the 
central government and the local commune. 

Belgium, Italy, Denmark and other nations have 
various forms of old-age relief, and the same is true 
of New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. New Zea- 
land, with her tendency toward economic legislation, 
has enacted several laws, the one of 1905 showing the 
fullest development of the idea that the state should 
care for the aged. In New Zealand the beneficiaries 
are not required to make any contribution, and they 
can retire at sixty-five, with a maximum pension of 
$130 per year. The New Zealand law followed some- 

"^ Massachusetts Commission on Old Age Pensions, Preliminary Re- 
port, 20-23. 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 175 

what one passed in Denmark in 1891, which differed 
from the German practice in that the insured were not 
required to make contributions to the fund from which 
they received aid. 

But it is in England that old-age pensions have been 
most discussed of late years, and that country has 
adopted policies which seem most far-reaching, if not 
revolutionary, in dealing with this question. For 
above a hundred and fifty years voluntary associations 
termed Friendly Societies (for the relief of those in 
need) have existed in Great Britain. Those societies, 
however, lacked stability and many of them failed, as 
has been true of numerous beneficial associations in the 
United States. Several Parliamentary commissions 
investigated this question and various schemes were 
proposed in the second half of the nineteenth century, 
the most definite and simple being that by General 
Charles Booth. General Booth proposed that all per- 
sons who had reached the age of sixty-five should re- 
ceive from the public treasury 5 shillings weekly. 
Two arguments were urged in support of this pro- 
posal : first, as it was to be given to everyone, no one 
would feel pauperized in receiving it; and second, it 
was so small a sum that it would not tend to discourage 
thrift. 

Various modifications of General Booth's plan were 
suggested, and all plans were bitterly opposed. Some 
objected to the principle on the ground that such a 
policy tended to paternalism and socialism ; others ob- 
jected to a non-contributory form of insurance, hold- 



176 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

ing that if such were once adopted a cooperative 
scheme could not be resorted to later. Two claims 
were made for non-contributory old-age insurance in 
England. These were the abject, need of many no 
longer able to work, and second, the due of these aged 
workers on the ground that they have by their labor 
already contributed to the wealth of the nation. 

Old-age pensions became a government policy be- 
fore the close of the nineteenth century, and in 1908 a 
law was enacted which went into effect January ist, 
1909. By this act an annuity of $1.25 weekly is ex- 
tended under the following conditions : The applicant 
must be above seventy years of age; he or she must 
have been for at least twenty years preceding the re- 
ceiving of a pension a British subject and a resident 
of Great Britain; and the applicant must not have an 
annual income in excess of $157.50. Minor grounds 
of disqualification are also provided, such as lunacy, 
alcoholism, and having received various forms of poor 
relief. 

The maximum British old-age pension is $1.25 per 
week, which is allowed to all whose yearly income is 
not in excess of $105. As the income increases from 
$105 to $157.50, the weekly annuity decreases by a 
sliding scale fr^m $1.25 to $0.25. When the income 
exceeds $157.50 the annuity ceases. Under the British 
system both men and women are eligible. 

The British system is administered through a cen- 
tral pension office, and local committees for boroughs 
and cities. All claims for pensions are presented 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 177 

through the postoffices, and the pensions are paid by 
means of the same agency/ 

The British old-age-pension act is an abandonment 
of the earlier individualistic principle of the British 
government, and in principle it has been approved by 
both of the dominant parties and by the nation. The 
extra burdens imposed by this pension act forced the 
government, which was responsible for it, to the adop- 
tion of a new form of taxation, which has affected pro- 
foundly the economic system. Sufficient time has not 
elapsed for one to hazard an opinion as to the effect 
of these new measures, but certain it is that the nation 
has departed on a sea of new experiences. 

Massachusetts has taken the earliest steps looking to 
possible old-age pensions in the United States. By act of 
1907, the Governor was authorized to appoint a Com- 
mission on Old Age Pensions, Annuities, and Insur- 
ance, which commission was required to '' investigate 
and consider the various systems of old-age insurance, 
or old-age pensions, or annuities, proposed or in opera- 
tion " in that commonwealth or elsewhere, and to re- 
port on the advisability of establishing an old-age in- 
surance or pension system for Massachusetts. A Com- 
mission of five persons was appointed in 1907, and in 
accordance with the terms of the act the Commission 
represented both employers and laborers. This Com- 
mission carried on investigations during 1908, and 
submitted a preliminary report in January of 1909. 

1 Barlow & Somme, Old Age Pension Act, 1908, 9-43. 



178 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

The preliminary report was chiefly valuable because of 
two appendices, one giving a summary of old-age pen- 
sion systems of foreign countries and the other a sum- 
mary of the pension systems of American railroads 
and industrial corporations. 

The Massachusetts Commission made its final re- 
port in 1 910, and its recommendations, as were fore- 
casted from its preliminary report and the press ac- 
counts of its investigations, were against the State 
inaugurating a system of old-age pensions. Instead, 
the Commission urged the good old Anglo-Saxon doc- 
trine of teaching independence and aiding everyone to 
care for himself. To this end the recommendation is 
for compulsory instruction on thrift in the public 
schools. Employers and employees were commended 
to the saving-bank-insurance provisions to be noted 
below, and corporations were urged to provide insur- 
ance for their employees; municipal pension systems 
were approved, from considerations of both economy 
and efficiency. The Commission pointed out that a 
general law for old-age insurance should not be passed 
before additional measures were enacted for sickness 
and accident insurance. 

A valuable part of the final report of the Massachu- 
setts Commission is that which sets forth the various 
forms of old-age pensions now in force. These are of 
six types : First, universal non-contributing insurance, 
by which everyone who reaches a given age will re- 
ceive a pension. Such was the plan proposed by Gen- 
eral Booth in England and by Edward Everett Hale 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 179 

in our own country; second, non-contributory, for 
those who meet certain conditions, as at present in 
operation in Great Britain and the Australian Colo- 
nies; third, compulsory contributory insurance with a 
state subsidy, as in Germany; fourth, voluntary con- 
tribution with a state subsidy, as in Belgium and 
France; fifth, voluntary insurance under state regula- 
tion but without state control, as illustrated by the 
Saving Bank Insurance of Massachusetts ; sixth, volun- 
tary insurance under private management. 

The Massachusetts report is especially strong against 
any form of non-contributory insurance, as is evi- 
denced by the following paragraph quoted from The 
Survey for January 5th, 1910: '*A non-contributory 
pension system is simply a council of despair. If such 
a scheme be defensible or excusable in this country, 
then the whole economic and social system is a failure. 
The adoption of such a policy would be a confession 
of its breakdown. To contend that it is necessary to 
take this course is to assume that members of the 
working class either cannot earn enough or cannot save 
enough to take care of themselves in their old age. If 
that be true, then American democracy is in a state of 
decay." 

The Massachusetts Commission recommended the 
creation of a permanent commission, which should 
serve without remuneration and continue the work of 
the Special Commission, and report from time to time 
the results of experiments being carried on in various 
parts of the world. 



180 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

By act of 1907 the Massachusetts savings banks were 
authorized to open departments for life and annuity 
insurance. Within two years after this act went into 
operation two Massachusetts savings banks wrote over 
a million and a half dollars of insurance. An agent is 
kept in the field instructing the people on the advan- 
tages of this form of insurance, the rate of insurance is 
low, and the banks have been able to do the business 
at a profit. It is the belief of the Massachusetts Com- 
mission that this form of annuity insurance offers a 
desirable means for old-age relief. It has been 
claimed that 5 per cent of the wages of laborers during 
the working period of their lives would provide an 
annuity sufficient to care for them during their old age. 

To make this sketch in any sense complete it will be 
necessary to describe forms of voluntary insurance 
under private management. Many railroads and other 
large employers of labor have inaugurated old-age 
retirement provisions, making these wholly or in part 
based upon the contributions of the beneficiaries. 
Even in cases where the laborers do not pay back a 
part of the wages paid to them, the operating com- 
panies are willing to acknowledge that the funds con- 
tributed by them are in the nature of deferred wages. 
And these contributions by the companies are war- 
ranted in the.returns from improved service, and in the 
interest and good spirit which is secured from the em- 
ployees. Thus old-age pensions are given by well- 
managed business concerns, not as a charity, not from 
any sentiment, but because the giving of them pays as 
a business proposition. 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 181 

Railroading has been the leading, though by no 
means the only, branch of business to maintain a sys- 
tem of pensions for the aged employees. The rea- 
sons for this were strikingly illustrated a few years 
ago when a serious accident resulted from the lack of 
mental alertness of an engineer, who had been long in 
service, and was past the time of efficiency, More 
than a score of the railroads maintain pension sy^stems. 
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad began the pension 
system among American railroads in 1884. The Penn- 
sylvania early developed pensions on an extensive 
scale, and at present it is expending annually over 
$500,000 for this purpose for those who have been 
employed on its lines east of Pittsburgh. The New 
York Central, the Boston and Maine, the Grand 
Trunk, and other great systems have followed in the 
lead of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania. 
The usual arrangement in all these plans is for the 
employee who has been ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty 
or more years in service to retire on a percentage of 
his average salary, and to have this without any assess- 
ments or contributions on the part of the future pen- 
sioners. Railroad men report two results from the 
pension provision. The character of the service is im- 
proved through the retirement of old and incompetent 
employees; and second, a more efficient class of em- 
ployee is called to the service and kept there. 

Other transportation companies, such as steamboat 
and municipal traction corporations have also adopted 
a similar provision, as have numerous mining, manu- 



182 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

facturing and merchandising concerns. From present 
tendencies it would seem that the large employer of 
labor who did not make provision for old-age em- 
ployees would soon be the exception to a general prac- 
tice. And naturally the concern which does not pro- 
vide for the full life of its employees will not be able 
to get and keep the most desirable employees. Thus 
tendencies point to old-age pensions as part of our 
economic system. 

In general, old-age pensions to employees are re- 
garded as deferred wages, and the granting of them is 
considered as a good business policy, but in some cases 
such action has been made more of a philanthropy. 
The gift of Andrew Carnegie of four million dollars 
for the disabled and incapacitated employees of his old 
works about Pittsburgh is of the latter sort. This 
fund has later had added to it eight million dollars by 
the United States Steel Corporation. 

An early form of old-age relief was practiced by the 
churches in caring for the superannuated ministers. 
It is a well-recognized fact that ministers are inade- 
quately compensated, and to supplement their salaries 
the churches have for more than a century been doing 
something to care for those who are beyond the period 
of active service. This practice has grown into a toler- 
ably well recognized branch of church work known as 
ministerial relief. The funds for such relief are con- 
tributed and the relief is extended and received not as 
a charity but as a return in part for the service which 
the aged minister has rendered to th^ church, One 



OLD AGE PENSIONS. 183 

need not attempt an argument for the justice of minis- 
terial relief. Almost the only comment called for is 
the limited number of cases of such relief, and the 
mere pittance of which the relief consists. Many min- 
isters have earned the right to retire on a competency 
who are still wearing out their lives in attempting to 
do a work which is beyond their failing strength, and 
at retirement men of refinement and education should 
not be expected to live on the usual three or four hun- 
dred dollars which is the common allowance in minis- 
terial relief as at present administered. 

Up to this time pensions by the federal government 
have been restricted to soldiers and sailors, and a few 
judges who have been retired. Our government early 
felt the obligation to care for those who had fought in 
its defence, and the soldiers of the Revolution were 
pensioned, as have been those of every war since. Our 
military and naval pensions have been liberal, and the 
present practice of retiring from the navy and army at 
62 and 64 years of age, and on three-fourths pay, is a 
generous provision. 

Numerous bills have been introduced into Congress 
in recent years looking to the establishment of a civil 
pension for the aged employees of the government. 
President Taft urged civil pensions in his annual mes- 
sage of 1909 on grounds of efficiency and economy. 
No administrative agent wishes to turn aged employees 
out of positions which afford them their only means of 
livelihood, and the result is many incompetent helpers 
in th§ various branches of the government seryic^. 



184 OLD AGE PENSIONS. 

The United States is one of the very few nations which 
have not a civil pension for the retirement of aged 
employees, and the company which she keeps in the 
present policy is not particularly to her credit, for 
almost the only other nations with her in this partic- 
ular are Venezuela, Colombia and Hayti. The senti- 
ment grows for a civil pension in the United States, 
and a few years will likely see some form of old-age 
retirement as a part of our federal system. 

The states have done little in the direction of old- 
age pension legislation. Special acts for policemen 
and firemen have been passed in various states, and 
other forms of old-age relief are permitted under state 
laws. These latter have been mostly the result of 
municipal activities which have been authorized by 
state enactments. 

Private initiative and government action tend to 
make provision for old age. Considerations of eco- 
nomic well-being and of social justice alike demand 
that those who have done worthy work shall be cared 
for during their whole lives. Old-age pensions in 
some form are humanitarian ; they are also in the 
direction of sound business policy. Altogether some 
form of cooperative or contributory old-age insurance 
seems open to fewer objections. This does not destroy 
the sense of responsibility of the insured, and it also 
enables the insured to have some part in the insurance 
administration, either directly or through the govern- 
ment. The world has progressed far since the in- 
capacitated were abandoned to die. Much remains to 
be done in adequately caring for the aged. 



XL 

Retirement Funds for Teachers. 

The last ten or a dozen years have seen a wide 
application of the principle of old-age relief to teach- 
ers of all grades from the primary school to the uni- 
versity. This was opposed in some quarters with the 
argument that adequate salaries should be paid and 
individuals left to care for themselves, and also that 
such a policy would lead to socialism by opening the 
way for all other classes to make demands that they 
be granted the same privileges. But appropriation of 
public funds for the establishment and the continuance 
of retirement fund plans for teachers has been well 
justified on the ground that the nature of the teach- 
er's service is such that he has earned the right to 
some provision for his old age by the community for 
which he has labored. Here surely is the place for an 
application of Premier Asquith's statement, '' The 
blood of the workman is part of the cost of the prod- 
uct." Nor can there be observed the threatened ava- 
lanche of socialism which was held to be impending if 
once was recognized the principle of community old- 
age relief to a single class. 

Everywhere the importance of the teacher's office is 

185 



186 RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 

recognized, and that this importance may be realized 
the teacher should be freed from solicitude for old age. 
The provision for a retirement fund carries with it 
security of tenure, and these two cannot fail to attract 
and retain a better grade of teacher than would other- 
wise be secured. The freedom from anxiety which a 
retirement fund gives will also tend to the improve- 
ment of those already in service as teachers. Teachers 
should avail themselves of opportunities for self- 
improvement, and when freed from the necessity of 
laying by all possible for the dreaded time of dismissal 
they can invest their surplus earnings in professional 
betterment, and thereby increase their usefulness and 
add to life's satisfactions. 

European countries have led the United States in a 
recognition of the dignity of the teacher's calling 
through the establishing of pensions. In this country the 
principle was first recognized in our higher institutions, 
and Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Cornell, and other uni- 
versities provided that men who had served them for 
a term of years, usually twenty or more, and who had 
reached sixty or sixty-five years of age, should be 
retired on such a percentage of their salaries as would 
afford them a means of livelihood. This action was 
taken, in part, in recognition of the rights of the stu- 
dents of the universities, whose due it is to have men 
as teachers who are at their best, and also in recog- 
nition of the rights of the professors themselves, whose 
due it is to be relieved of the arduous labors of their 
positions when they reach a time of declining powers, 



RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 187 

Important contributions have been made towards 
furnishing retiring allowances to teachers in higher 
institutions by the gifts of Mr. Andrew Carnegie. In 
1905 Mr. Carnegie addressed an open letter to twenty- 
five gentlemen whom he had selected to act as trustees 
of a fund he proposed to give. At the outset he voiced 
his opinion that teaching was the poorest paid of the 
professions, and that in consequence many able men 
hesitated to adopt it as a calling. The retirement fund 
for the teachers of New York City was mentioned 
with approval, but Mr. Carnegie drew attention to the 
fact that the higher institutions generally had not been 
able to extend like treatment to the old men in their 
service. 

The first gift under the Carnegie Foundation was 
of $10,000,000, the income of which was to be applied 
to supplying pensions for teachers of colleges, univer- 
sities, and technical schools in the United States, Can- 
ada, and New Foundland. This fund was three years 
later increased by a gift of $5,000,000 additional. 
Sectarian institutions and state-supported institutions 
were excluded in the first grant, though in 1908, by 
means of a supplementary gift, the Foundation was 
made to extend to state-supported institutions.. This 
latter action resulted from a somewhat insistent de- 
mand of the state universities that they be included 
in the benefits of the Foundation. It was held by 
those administering the state universities that unless 
they could participate they would lose their more de- 
sirable teachers to the institutions that could hold out 



188 RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 

the attractions of possible retirement under this Foun- 
dation. Happily, the founder relieved the situation 
by his second bequest. In addition to the other rules 
governing institutions which are admitted to the bene- 
fits of the Foundation, tax-supported colleges, univer- 
sities, and technical schools are required to present the 
request of their governing boards, approved by the 
governors of the states and the state legislatures of the 
states in which the institutions are located. 

The Board early decided that the Foundation should 
attempt to be more than a ''distributing agency " for 
pensions. The purposes, as stated in the charter, are 
" to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, 
uphold, and dignify the profession of the teacher and 
the cause of higher education." The Foundation has 
amply demonstrated that it is " not a charity, but an 
educational agency." 

Many careful observers hold that the prohibition 
against sectarian institutions has been a means of re- 
stricting religious education. Certain it is that several 
institutions, in order to enjoy the benefits of the Foun- 
dation, have passed from the control of denominational 
boards, and have given up their former direct denom- 
inational affiliations, though this by no means necessi- 
tates that* they cease to be institutions for religious 
education. 

Though the Carnegie Foundation has been in exist- 
ence but a few years, it has rendered conspicuous ser- 
vice to the calling of teaching. The aim of the Foun- 
dation, as expressed in its full corporate title, has been 



RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 189 

realized to a remarkable degree, and to the specific 
work of affording relief to the aged and incapacitated 
professors, and to the widows of professors, there has 
been added a helpful influence in the stari^dardizing of 
colleges, universities, professional schools, and even of 
preparatory schools. 

In a country such as ours where there is no national 
supervision of education, and where state supervision 
is quite indefinite and dissimilar, a central body which 
shall ascertain facts and draw comparisons can be of 
great service, and the numerous reports and bulletins 
of the Carnegie Foundation have been interesting and 
helpful. Some have spoken slightingly of the Foun- 
dation and its work, terming it an " educational trust," 
a " pension trust," etc., but a fair judgment on the 
whole work of the Carnegie trustees warrants the 
statement that they have administered the Foundation 
*' for the advancement of teaching," and in many re- 
spects the gift of Mr. Andrew Carnegie for pension- 
ing college teachers is the most far-reaching and 
beneficent act of any one man for the upbuilding of the 
teaching profession. 

Particularly has the Foundation been of service be- 
cause of the liberal and generous spirit of the ad- 
ministrators. Especially meritorious cases have been 
rendered aid by grants from the Board quite aside 
from any institutional affiliations. The high plane on 
which the Foundation was placed has made retirement 
by it a badge of honorable distinction, not an evidence 
of accepting charity. 



190 RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 

Under the Carnegie Foundation no retiring allow- 
ance can be for more than $4,000 per year. For those 
who receive a salary of $1,200 or less the allowance 
is fixed at 1 1,000. The annuities are thus made to 
range from $1,000 to $4,000 per year, but with pro- 
vision that a retiring allowance shall not be in excess 
of 90 per cent of the salary received at the time of 
retirement. The exact amount between $1,000 and 
$4,000 is determined by adding to the minimum allow- 
ance $50 additional for each $100 by which the retir- 
ing salary is in excess of $1,200. Those professors who 
are eligible to grants from their own institutions may 
draw these without invalidating their allowance from 
the Carnegie Foundation. 

The conditions of retirement during the first three 
or four years of the Foundation's existence were un- 
usually liberal, college professors having claims after 
twenty- five years of service irrespective of age and 
disability. Experience, however, led to the adoption 
of a disability clause and a rule of eligibility, as fol- 
lows : ''Any person who has had twenty-five years of 
service as a professor or thirty years' service as pro- 
fessor and instructor, and who is at the time either a 
professor or an instructor in an accepted institution, 
shall, in the case of disability unfitting him for work 
of teacher, approved by medical examination, be en- 
titled to a retiring allowance." 

The terms of granting annuities for disability are 
less generous than they are for annuities on account 
of age. Any person in an accredited institution who 



RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 191 

has seen service for not less than fifteen years as a 
professor or for not less than twenty-five years as an 
instructor, and who has reached the age of sixty-five 
years, is entitled to a retiring allowance irrespective of 
disability. In 1910 there was on the accepted list of 
the Carnegie Foundation a total of seventy-one insti- 
tutions. In addition to pensions in these, retiring 
allowances have been awarded to those in seventy-one 
other institutions. One hundred and fifty-five such 
allowances have been granted, aggregating an annual 
payment in 1909 of $144,000. Action was taken in 
1910 looking to a more restricted application of the 
policy of outside allowances in the future.- This 
action was based on the more accurate information of 
the various institutions in the possession of the Foun- 
dation and the increasing demands from those in ac- 
cepted institutions. It was therefore voted that re- 
tiring allowances should not be allowed to those out- 
side of the accepted list, except to especially worthy 
cases in institutions whose standards are known to be 
such that within a short time they will be ready for 
admission to the Foundation. 

In 1899, Lewis Elkin left to the administration of 
the Philadelphia Board of Education a fund now 
amounting to a million and three-quarters dollars, the 
income of which is to be used for annuities to the 
needy, aged and incapacitated women teachers of the 
city. Mr. Elkin had been a member of the Philadel- 
phia Board of Education, and in that capacity he had 



192 RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 

observed what any discerning person may observe, 
that there are many teachers in service who are drag- 
ging out their lives because they have not the means on 
which to retire, and there are others who, when re- 
tired, are reduced to the direst want. For women who 
had served in the schools of the city for at least twenty- 
five years and who were not able to continue, 
and who were in need of the annuity, he provided an 
allowance of $400 annually. This bequest preceded 
the establishment of a general retirement fund, and 
since the establishment of the latter the two have been 
administered in cooperative relations. The Elkin fund 
has thus become in effect an endowment to the Teach- 
er's Retirement Fund of Philadelphia. 

The establishment of retirement funds for teachers 
of the public schools was begun by voluntary associa- 
tions among teachers, providing for incapacity, death 
benefits and old-age annuity insurance. These asso- 
ciations were voluntary and naturally were not able to 
get and keep any large proportion of teachers as mem- 
bers. Of the forty-eight teachers' retirement funds in 
existence in the United States in 1909, 17 per cent 
were still of the " mutual benefit " sort, financed en- 
tirely by the teachers themselves. To such a volun- 
tary insurance there will always be the objection which 
is urged against fraternal insurance in any form; the 
young person does not wish to come into an association 
and share pro rata in carrying the burdens of older 
members. The membership and income thus fail to 
keep pace with the increasing demands of an earlier 



RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 193 

membership. In some places such voluntary associa- 
tions have been successful in securing appropriations 
of public funds to carry out the purposes for which 
they were Established. All such associations rendered 
service in the beginning of the retirement fund plans, 
and some of them were merged into one of the forms 
of teachers' pensions to be described below. 

Legislation for teachers' retirement fund plans have 
been along two lines, either the establishment of a 
state fund for all the teachers of a given state, or acts 
giving authority for a city or other local unit to organ- 
ize such a fund, or providing the details of such an 
organization in the acts themselves. Early acts mak- 
ing membership of teachers already in service compul- 
sory were found to be unconstitutional because of their 
impairment of the validity of contracts. In all subse- 
quent legislation provision is made for teachers who 
are in service to join if they wish, but in joining they 
accept the terms of the retirement plan as a part of 
their contract. In addition, these later acts have usu- 
ally required the acceptance of the provisions of a 
teachers' retirement fund as a condition of accepting 
appointment as a teacher. In the places where the 
retirement fund has been established the teachers 
already engaged have accepted its terms practically 
unanimously, and with the compulsory requirement for 
all new teachers a. permanent membership is assured. 

Retirement fund plans are generally regarded as 
cooperative enterprises. In two-thirds of the forty- 
eight plans reported to the Bureau of Labor in 1909, 



194 RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 

the support came in part from the public treasury and 
in part from the contributions of the teachers. Teacher 
contributions have several advantages. First, they 
put the fund before the teachers themselves and before 
the public in a better light. The teachers are thus re- 
garded as working with the government to accomplish 
a given desirable result. There is an encouragement 
to thrift and a growth in self-respect from teachers 
doing something for themselves. More than this, 
through teacher-contribution there may be introduced 
teacher-participation in the management. In thirty- 
six of the funds above mentioned the teachers have a 
part in the administration. In several of the largest 
funds teachers or former teachers have served as secre- 
taries and chief executive officers. The advantages are 
obvious for teachers having to do with those of their 
own calling in arranging for the terms and conditions 
of their retirement. 

Six of the forty-eight funds above mentioned are 
organized on a state basis. The states having retire- 
ment funds for all their teachers are Connecticut, 
Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, 
and Virginia. Of the states just named two only, viz., 
Maryland and Rhode Island, supply all the revenue 
through appropriations from the public treasury. 

New Jersey has the most effective state pension 
arrangement for its teachers. This is a result of a 
joint administration of a voluntary teachers' retire- 
ment fund plan established in 1896 and a state half- 
pay district pension law enacted in 1903. Under the 



RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 195 

present arrangement in New Jersey the state bears the 
expense of administration of the voluntary organiza- 
tion. The latter organization is supported by the reg- 
ular contributions of its members, income on invested 
funds, donations and gifts. Those who have served 
ten years and under are required to contribute two per 
cent of their salary, those over ten years and under 
fifteen years two and one-half per cent, those fifteen 
and over three per cent, but no one is required to con- 
tribute more than $50 in a given year. Those who 
have served twenty years as teachers in New Jersey 
and are incapacitated, and have, paid in at least one full 
annuity, are eligible to retirement at six-tenths of their 
salary, but with the provision that no annual annuity 
shall be for less than $250 or for-more than $650. 

The half-pay pension law of New Jersey is carried 
out by local school boards. This law provides that 
teachers who have been thirty-five years in the service 
in the state and twenty years in the given district may 
be, at the discretion of the school board, retired on 
one-half of their average annual salary for the five 
years preceding. This act is thus made to operate as 
a part of the salary arrangement of a given board. 
Thus a local board may allow a teacher who fulfils the 
conditions a half of her former salary, and carry her 
name on the salary roll, allowing her to be free from 
regular duty. In certain cases these teachers are 
called on for special duties. 

It should be noted that the same teacher may in 
New Jersey be retired under the voluntary plan and 



196 RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 

also under the local half-pay pension law, and some 
have been so retired. The New Jersey laws for teach- 
ers' retirement have been beset by many obstacles, 
legal and otherwise, but they have passed these safely 
and the teachers of New Jersey have the most generous 
and rational plan for retirement in operation in any 
state in America. That this is true is largely due to 
the efforts of one woman in the city of Hoboken. 

The most common form of pensions for teachers of 
the public schools is the provision made by a given city 
for those who work in its schools, regarding these as mu- 
nicipal employees. Precedent for this arrangement was 
found in the policemen's and firemen's pension funds 
widely established, and generallj^ approved. In most 
cases the teachers' retirement funds are maintained as 
are the policemen's and firemen's pensions, i. e., by joint 
contributions of the municipality and those who are to 
be the beneficiaries. Nearly all the large cities of the 
country, and many smaller cities as well, now have 
pension provisions operating for their teachers. Across 
the country we find Boston, Providence, New York, 
Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, In- 
dianapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Omaha, Salt Lake City, 
San Francisco, not to mention such cities as Washing- 
ton, D. C, Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, 
and New Orleans. In New York state alone the list 
of retirement fund cities is impressive, including 
Greater New York, Albany, Buffalo, Elmira, Roches- 
ter, Schenectady, Syracuse, Troy, and Yonkers. 

In most of the cities above mentioned there is a per- 



RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 197 

centage basis of contribution by the teachers, with a 
fixed maximum. There is also usually provided a 
graduated annuity based on salary at the time of re- 
tirement, or the average for the five years preceding 
this time, but there is also generally a fixed minimum 
and maximum annuity. Chicago, Boston, and Detroit 
began their retirement funds with a uniform contribu- 
tion from all teachers who joined, and provided for the 
same annuities to all who retired. But the contribu- 
tions were made so low, to make it possible for the 
low-salaried teachers to pay without hardship, that 
there was not sufficient revenue to provide suitable 
annuities for retirement. The best experience points 
to contributions graded according to salaries, at least 
within certain limits, and also based upon years of ex- 
perience. 

Two retirement fund plans for cities are representa- 
tive of the ways in which such funds may be estab- 
lished. The first is that for Greater New York, where 
the law from the state legislature provides the terms 
and conditions of the fund ; the second is that for Phila- 
delphia, where the provisions for the fund have been 
worked out and adopted by the city, an act of authori- 
zation only having been passed by the state legislature. 

The New York retirement fund as now existing is 
compulsory upon all teachers appointed to the public 
schools of Greater New York. The present fund was 
formed in 1 902 by the consolidation of voluntary 
organizations which has been established in Manhattan 
in 1894, and in Brooklyn in 1895. The Board of Re- 



198 RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 

tirement in New York has seven members, as follows : 
the President of the Board of Education, the Chairman 
of the Committee on High Schools, the Chairman of 
the Committee on Elementary Schools, the Superin- 
tendent of Schools, and three other persons elected b}f 
the members from principals, assistants to principals, 
and teachers of the public schools. After thirty years 
of service, fifteen of which shall have been in the public 
schools of New York, any teacher may retire at his 
or her own request, providing he or she is recom- 
mended by the Board of Retirement and the recom- 
mendation is approved by a two-thirds vote of the 
Board of Education. 

Under the New York law the fund is maintained by 
an appropriation of five per cent of all the excise 
moneys of the city, a contribution of one per cent of the 
salary of all the teachers, but no contribution shall be 
for more than $30 for a teacher and more than $40 
for a supervising officer. The fund also receives the 
deductions which are made from the teachers' salaries 
because of absence. In round figures, the income of 
the New York fund is about $850,000, made up of 
some $300,000 for deductions because of absence, 
about the same amount from five per cent of the excise 
taxes, and nearly or quite $250,000 in contributions 
from members. Any unexpended balance from any 
year's income may be at the end of the year transferred 
to the permanent funds. Any part of the permanent 
funds in excess of $800,000 may be drawn upon in 
case of need to pay the annuities of a current year. 



RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 199 

This arrangement assures a permanent fund of at least 
$800,000. The New York retirement fund has at 
present a permanent fund of above a million dollars. 

Under the New York plan teachers may receive half 
pay, but no full annuity shall be for less than $600. 
The maximum annuity shall be $1,500, except for 
supervising officers, who may receive as high as $2,- 
000. The total number of annuitants on February 1st, 
1909 was 1,033. This was over five per cent of the 
total employment roll of the department of instruction 
of the city. Those having to do with the adminis- 
tration of the New York plan express the opinion that 
they have not yet their full complement of annuitants, 
that about eight per cent of a teaching force may be 
considered as the. normal number who will be on re- 
tirement when a retirement arrangement is in full 
effect. 

From the foregoing it will be seen that there are vari- 
ous forms of old-age relief for teachers. Broadly, we 
might distinguish between pensions and retiring allow- 
ances, the former being given outright without contri- 
bution on the part of the beneficiaries and without 
their participation in the management. A much more 
common and more desirable form of relief is a co- 
operative enterprise between the teachers and the com- 
munity. Both are the gainers, and both may by rights 
be asked to make contributions. Both should also 
participate in the management. The participation of 
the teachers as a class in the contributions and ad- 
ministration makes for the solidarity of the teachers 



200 RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 

as a class and gives them interest and confidence in a 
retirement fund plan. If the community makes all 
the contribution, the danger is that the pension will be 
looked upon as a charity, or a dole. On the other 
hand, the entire contribution and management by 
teachers imposes a burden too heavy and the arrange- 
ment is one-sided. An association for retirement 
among teachers alone cannot well be made compulsory 
as to membership, and it is almost sure to fail sooner 
or later. It is only when an organization of teachers 
cooperates with the government that the elements 
necessary to success are brought into relation. 

The forms of teachers' retirement funds are various 
and altogether the results of the several experiments 
are inconclusive, but the laws and plans are being 
amended and perfected. Insurance experience and 
tables of life-expectancy have furnished valuable data. 
Some of the funds- have accumulated a considerable 
surplus. Then, as a result of the compulsory feature, 
they have an assured and increasing membership. The 
prospects for several of the funds seem most encour- 
aging. 

Retirement funds have made more attractive the 
calling ,of the teacher. Where introduced they have 
dignified and ennobled the teacher's work; they have 
given to teachers independence and self esteem which 
could not otherwise have been secured. Not only is 
there, as a result of these funds, the community con- 
sciousness of having dealt justly by the teachers, but 
there is also the certainty of having given to the chil- 



RETIREMENT FUNDS FOR TEACHERS. 201 

dren their due in not keeping in the schools teachers 
who are incapacitated for efficient service. Thus in 
every way there is gain as a result of the existence of 
retirement funds for teachers, and their wide adoption 
is an evidence that their worth is being generally rec- 
ognized. 



NOV 28 t9tf 



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